SHORT QUOTE: SAP is "liquid concrete"
Summary: The Economist quotes fellow ZDNet blogger and Enterprise Irregular, Josh Greenbaum, on the subject of SAP's forthcoming software as a service (SaaS) product, known as A1S:A broader question is whether SAP can overcome its history. It grew up selling complicated software directly to big businesses.
The Economist quotes fellow ZDNet blogger and Enterprise Irregular, Josh Greenbaum, on the subject of SAP's forthcoming software as a service (SaaS) product, known as A1S:
A broader question is whether SAP can overcome its history. It grew up selling complicated software directly to big businesses. Now it will need to reach the much larger number of less sophisticated customers, who want simpler products. Worse, says Josh Greenbaum of EAC, a consultancy, firms may simply not believe that SAP has suddenly discovered flexibility. “People still haven't forgotten the old joke that implementing SAP is like pouring concrete into a company,” he says.
Can SAP convince the market that its rigid, complicated ways are a thing of past? Time will tell, but the success of A1S depends on it.
UPDATE: You may also be interested in this article, on the subject of negotiating pricing and licenses with SAP. For more on A1S, click here.
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Talkback
SAP and SME
The deputy CEO of SAP, who can speak several languages fluently, states in it that he is now having to learn the language of the "Mittelstand" (medium sized businesses).
One imagines him hearing such things as "zu teuer, zu kompliziert, wie viel Berater?!" (too expensive, too complicated, how many consultants?!) and responding "I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you mean, you'll have to run that one by me again".
Wish I spoke German
English version of SPIEGEL article on SAP
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,505809,00.html
Bye
Christian