SAP is planning to announce its entry into the hosted
customer relationship management (CRM) market this week, to take on
the likes of Salesforce.com and Siebel.
Salesforce.com is the leader in hosted CRM applications and
larger rival Siebel, which is being acquired by Oracle, has offered
a hosted CRM solution for years.
SAP will therefore be entering a market which it has previously
spurned, but with companies now increasingly more confident about
hosted applications, SAP now feels it is ready to take the
plunge.
SAP has been taking its time to get its hosted CRM option right,
as it wants to offer potential customers a service that has all the
features of a traditional licensed model.
SAP has been floating its entry into the hosted CRM market for
about a year. It wants to also give its hosted customers an easy
option to buy its software too, where appropriate.
The company is also working on how its hosted CRM offering will
easily integrate with other business applications at firms.
