SAP comes out fighting in 'unprecedented' move
Business software provider SAP has taken aggressive moves to fight against the combined might of Oracle/PeopleSoft in the enterprise arena.
In what analyst firm AMR has referred to as an ‘unprecedented step’, SAP is offering Peoplesoft and JD Edwards customers a migration path to its own software but will support these new clients on their current IT platform.
TomorrowNow will provide the third-party support to SAP’s new clients as they begin their migration process.
‘The uncertainty for PeopleSoft customers has not gone away,’ SAP global spokesman Markus Verner told Accountancy Age. ‘SAP is now a safe passage for the decision-makers in companies. It’s up to the customer when they want to make these moves.’
The offer is expected to run until at least the end of 2005. SAP is also reorganising its UK partner channel-structure to aggressively target SMEs. SAP, which entered the SME area with its Business One and mySAP products in 2003, said it was looking to strengthen its partner relationships with a more defined structure and increased investment.
To support its new structure, the vendor has also appointed Ciaran Rafferty as general manager of its SME business. He said details of the restructure are still being finalised, but he claimed one focus is to attack specific vertical SME markets in the UK.
Rafferty said software resellers will be given access to these new markets in the following months. ‘We will open up more vertical markets at set points, but only when the time is right.’
‘In 2005, partnering and our SME business is one of the top three strategic global decisions for the UK. We are investing in the channel, and this will be a partner-led strategy.’
Microsoft Business Solutions has also attempted to muscle itself among disgruntled PeopleSoft and Oracle customers by offering a migration path to its own products, such as Navision and Axapta, albeit by more conventional means: via discounted terms.