GOC

SAP (News - Alert) has laid claims that in the very near future, companies can only choose two approaches for a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), a computer systems architectural style for creating and using business processes, packaged as services, throughout their lifecycle. One platform is the Enterprise SOA by Evolution Platform, the rich platform, the [ERP 2006] suite. The second platform is by their launch of a new hybrid model termed as “service by design” aimed at SAP's core customer base of large companies.

 

According to Co-CEO Henning Kagermann, the new model will consist of online software components that integrate with a company's on-site SAP software.

 

SAP is a provider of comprehensive range of enterprise software applications and business solutions to empower every aspect of one’s business.

 

This “service by design” is somewhat said to be an elongation of its previously released Business ByDesign model, a solution for small businesses and midsize companies and a complete and adaptable business solution designed to unify and streamline core business operations or rowing companies that traditionally have not purchased an integrated business application due to issues of cost and complexity.

 

The first offering through these services by design, will be an online tool for companies to select and manage suppliers, integrating with their on-site supply chain or ERP software. It's the same model Microsoft (News - Alert) is pushing as software plus services, though, like SAP, most of Microsoft's product offerings are still in the planning stages.

 

The components of the model will be hosted and managed by SAP, driven by NetWeaver-based service-oriented architecture developed for Business ByDesign. The decision to sell the model as a subscription or as a license or as both has not been made yet by SAP.

 

Beyond supplier relationship management, SAP is looking at components for ERP, talent management, and analytics. Business intelligence vendor Business Objects (News - Alert), which SAP just acquired, already offers reporting tools and other applications on demand.

 

The small-customer Business ByDesign hasn't been a big seller for SAP, and the company's slashing in half what it had planned to invest in the online-only ERP offering--a product Kagermann had called the "most important" of his career. SAP always has portrayed a pure SaaS (News - Alert) approach as appealing to only a small sliver of its potential customer base; those with 100 to 500 employees.

 

“The services by design approach if it works, could let SAP protect its profitable licensed software business, get more services revenue from those customers, and address concerns large companies have with putting some of their most sensitive business data in the cloud. For mission-critical applications like accounting, "I don't think large companies will go on demand," Kagermann said.

 

He described the integration of on-site and off-site software on the vendor's "loosely coupled, asynchronous" SOA platform. "The Business ByDesign architecture and investment must not be focused on midmarket only," Kagermann now says.

 

Robert Strickland, CIO of T-Mobile (News - Alert), which uses SAP and Business Objects applications and NetWeaver middleware, sees promise in the model. "If you can have a universal SOA layer that allows you to connect everyone to that common bus and defines how you expose those services, that may ultimately give us the best flexibility," Strickland said.

 

"It would let us order things la carte and connect them seamlessly." Such cloud computing efforts are becoming more practical as broadband speed and connectivity options improve, he said.