Just two months after announcing its internet strategy, mySAP.com, the German software giant appears to have had a change of heart and is re-launching the initiative under a new name, with a new product strategy. The announcement was made at its Sapphire user conference in Nice, France back in May, but just two months down the line and SAP is already changing its story. When it launched mySAP.com, SAP billed it as the next generation digital marketplace a portal which would give users roles-based access to ERP data, third party applications and all manner of services (news, travel, financial information) from relevant sites on the internet. SAP also planned to link in its front office customer relationship management, business to business procurement and selling software as well as its self-service offerings.
Now, for a reason that SAP doesn’t seem to be able to explain very easily (although it says it’s made the changes to make things more simple), the software vendor has renamed the portal System mySAP.com and is calling it a product rather than a strategy. But what the actual difference is isn’t very clear. SAP’s senior VP of corporate marketing, Gunther Tolkmit told ComputerWire that SAP decided to make the change after feedback from its customers. We decided we needed to go one step further, he told ComputerWire, we needed an actual product…something that could be evaluated, demonstrated and hosted over the internet with everything integrated from front to back end.
Tolkmit said that customers will go to SAP and request exactly what software they need as part of their System mySAP.com package. Whereas in the past they would have had to have bought the different software applications and components separately, SAP will now sell them the complete package, preconfigured, for one price. Moreover, Tolkmit says when the product becomes available, in September, all SAP’s front and back office software will be fully web-enabled and fully integrated. If that’s true, it will certainly be a coup for the software vendor. Analysts say the key to the survival and subsequent success of ERP vendors is the speed with which they buy in or develop front office software and integrate it with their back office systems. At the moment, no vendor is offering a complete end-to-end bundle, but if SAP can have its integration house in order by September then that will certainly put it ahead of all the leading enterprise and front office software vendors; most of whom currently offer only bits of the puzzle.
SAP is not the only enterprise software vendor which appears to be confused about its internet strategy. Earlier this month, having made a big fuss over the launch of its PSBN initiative (PeopleSoft Business Network), PeopleSoft Inc promptly turned round and dropped the slogan saying the perception [of PSBN] was that it was a strategy and a vision that was a long way off. Although PeopleSoft claims it’s still carrying on with the underlying product development and roll-out, analysts say the turn around is clear evidence that the ERP vendor’s internet strategy is in tatters.
