SAP users have welcomed the software supplier'sannouncementthat it is to integrate its online
services more closely with its traditional software
business.
John Wookey, SAP's vice-president for on-demand services,
outlined the plans at the OnDemand Europe conference in Amsterdam
yesterday.
SAP is to expand its Large Enterprise On-Demand offering and
enable end-users to integrate these applications with existing core
ERP software.
The aim, said Wookey, is to combine the flexibility of
software-as-a-service (SaaS) with the strengths of the SAP's
core Business Suite.
"This is great news and should be welcomed by the user community
as it offers great potential," said
Alan Bowling, chairman of the SAP UK and Ireland User
Group.
He said there are not many large enterprises that would move
their core business processes to the cloud, because of concerns
about security and reliability.
"This move from SAP is welcome as it allows companies to keep in
use their in-house SAP systems for their core processes while at
the same time taking advantage of some of the benefits of SaaS," he
said.
Paul Daugherty, Accenture's chief technology architect, said
research has shown that 50% of high-performing organisations are
using SaaS in some form.
"SAP's announcement is an important step in addressing the
increasing desire for customers to take advantage of cloud and SaaS
solutions," he said.
According to Daugherty, SaaS sales are projected to grow at over
25% next year, which means a wave of announcements concerning the
adoption of SaaS is likely.
"This news from SAP will add to the growing legitimacy of the
SaaS model which encourages the development of company-wide
processes, making it easier for a company to focus on what
differentiates it from the competition," he said.
