| Abstract: | At its annual Influencer Summit, the applications leader says it is working to build out a reseller network for its ByDesign product that will rival those of its current SMB offerings. |
| Keywords: | ByDesign sales, ByDesign resellers |
BOSTON — At its annual meeting with research firms and analysts, SAP AG yesterday provided an update on the progress of its new mid-market Business ByDesign product, saying the company is continuing to build out a partner channel for the on-demand offering, which will be pivotal to the product's prospects when it reaches general release next year.
Hans-Peter Klaey, president of SAP's SME unit, said that so far 22 resellers have signed on to offer Business ByDesign. SoftBrands, an SAP channel partner and purveyor of the FourthShift Edition for SAP Business One, an on-premises software product for small companies, has also agreed to take on Business ByDesign. SoftBrands Senior Vice President Ralf Suerken spoke at yesterday's fifth-annual SAP Influencer Summit in support of the SAP channel program.
Klaey said that the goal of the Business ByDesign partner program is to have a group of resellers similar in size to those that offer SAP's Business One and All-in-One on-premises mid-market products.
"The number of partners will be in the same ballpark as Business One and All-in-One," he said during a session on the mid-market.
But Klaey seemed to suggest that building a reseller channel for an on-demand software product is new territory. "Nobody has a real good model for on-demand partners," he said, noting that SAP has an opportunity to build one with Business ByDesign.
Currently, the partner program for the Business One product, targeted to companies with fewer than 100 employees, has 1,343 resellers, while the All-in-One product, designed for companies with between 500 and 2,500 employees, has 1,107 partners. The Business ByDesign product is being offered to companies with between 100 and 500 employees.
SAP Business ByDesign covers eight major functional areas — financial, customer relationship, human resource, supply chain, supplier relationship, project management compliance management, and executive management support — that are based on SAP's enterprise service-oriented architecture and NetWeaver technology. The product is priced at $149 per user, per month, including software, infrastructure, services, and support, with a minimum of 25 licensed users per customer. For those requiring only limited access to the software — what SAP termed "efficiency" users — the product is priced at $54 per month for five users.
SAP said at the product's September 19 launch that the company is pilot testing Business ByDesign with companies in the U.S. and Germany and "validating" it with firms in the United Kingdom, France, and China. Expansion to other countries will occur in 2008 and 2009. SAP also said at the launch that it had 40 companies pilot testing the product and 20 others live with it. Klaey yesterday said that SAP is in talks with many more companies about the program, although he declined to provide specific numbers.
But in attempting to show growing support for Business ByDesign, Klaey also said that since the September launch, there have been 15,000 unique visits to SAP's online partner channel portal, as well as 100,000 unique visits to the product's own Web pages.
Klaey said he has four priorities going forward: to deepen market awareness, create what he called "targeted" demand-generation activities, fill out the channel partner programs, and oversee selected engagements with early customers.
SAP has said that its goal for Business ByDesign is to have 10,000 customers by 2010. At a question-and-answer session with reporters yesterday, SAP chairman and chief executive Henning Kagermann was asked about SAP's outlook for 2008 in light of the deepening credit/mortgage crisis in the United States.
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