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SAP Business ByDesign is not being canned

SAP Busines ByDesign enters a new chapter in its history. One that sees changes but not retirement.
Written by Dennis Howlett, Contributor

Yesterday the SAPPHIRE air was polluted by confusion and speculation around the future of SAP Business ByDesign. Comments made by Lars Dalgaard that “Business ByDesign was a beautiful vision but it was too big. Everyone does not want to put all their apps out in the cloud in one go. It was intimidating,” combined with the news that SAP is offering separate functional applications, created the impression that BYD was being sunsetted.

This caused issues for some resellers who have already invested in BYD training. They were left wondering if they had been hung out to dry and what story to tell their customers. It also left a poorly informed media jumping to conclusions.

None of this was helped by two other factors:

What everyone ignored was the fact that SuccessFactors announced it has just gone live on BYD for all its employees in a matter of weeks.

I don't know about you but anyone with half a brain must know that you don't tip up as leader of a cloud business and announce you've just gone live with a solution you plan to kill. It doesn't make sense. Unless of course you believe the leader of that outfit has gone completely off the rails.

Dalgaard was unequivocal: "I don't understand this. Sure, the board gave me full power to kill it if I felt it was the right thing to do. But why would I kill a product that has live customers, is selling and on which we have just committed a large number of developers?"

He did however admit that the company's go to market was not as good as it could be and remains convinced that SAP can succeed with a separated financials solution. That comes out of his conviction that the full suite is 'intimidating' in its current form. Whether he is right remains to be seen but once again, a fresh chapter opens up in the ever evolving BYD story.

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