Larry Ellison, the founder and head of Oracle, the database and now applications company, who is an interesting man, even if he does tend to the quotable rather than the accurate, has outlined his views on SAP Business by Design rather nicely in this paragraph.
"Ellison said he believes SAP has taken a misstep with Business ByDesign—particularly in its approach to the midmarket. "We see the problem in that because we've looked at going downmarket," Ellison said. "We've looked very closely at it, and we think it's very hard to make money because there is no synergy. To go downmarket you need a new product and new product development teams. You spend a lot of money developing a whole new product for the low end. But you also need an all-new sales force because we don't call on those customers. We don't call on small businesses, and it's very expensive to call on small businesses. It's very expensive to do ERP implementations in small businesses. The cost of sales is high. The cost of implementation is high. There are virtually no synergies in sales, marketing, and product development and support." "
I find myself in the surprising position of agreeing with Larry Ellison´s analysis on something. I said something not dissimilar myself recently. The internal reaction to the actual product within the broader SAP is very positive, and it is a nice piece of software, but we do have to dance to a different drummer for the mid-market. Should be an interesting challenge for someone.
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