One of the more interesting sagas in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market has been SAP’s effort to develop and deliver a competitive offering.

After a series of fits and starts over the past three years, SAP is hoping the latest version of its SaaS-based Business ByDesign (ByD) system which was made generally available today will finally hit the mark.

As I reported in this space in May, I was briefed by SAP (a THINKstrategies client) at its Sapphire user conference about the significant investment it has made retooling the ByD service delivery infrastructure and user interface to make it more appealing, economical and competitive. On the infrastructure side, the 2.5 version of ByD boasts a truer multi-tenant architecture to make it more scalable. The user interface is more intuitive and easier to configure.

Today SAP unveiled three new ‘starter kits’ in Feature Pack 2.5:

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) starter package which the company says can be implemented in approximately three weeks at a fixed implementation price of $13,500 (EUR 9,900) and subscription fee of $89 (EUR 79) per user.
2. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) starter package which can be implemented in approximately six weeks for a fixed implementation price of $37,500 (EUR 24,900) and subscription fee of $149 (EUR 133) per user.
3. Professional Service Provider (PSP) starter package which can be deployed in approximately eight weeks for a fixed implementation price of $45,000 (EUR 34,900) and subscription fee of $149 (EUR 133) per user.

While the latest offerings clearly illustrate the company’s determination to deliver a solid SaaS solution, the real measure of its success will be its market uptake from a customer and partner perspective.

Now that SAP has addressed some of the key technological and application design deficencies of ByD, it must overcome the go-to-market challenges in order to win over new customers and partners to prove it has regained a competitive edge.

Business ByDesign SaaS SAP Software-as-a-Service