Hubwoo -- A Little Oracle Mistress on the Side?
This news surprises me a bit given how close Hubwoo is to SAP (a member of the SAP executive team sits on Hubwoo's board). But I highly doubt that this deal would have been possible without SAP's blessing.
Regardless of the politics and alimony involved in getting the deal done, it bodes well for Hubwoo in North America -- not to mention Oracle customers alike. And that's because Hubwoo will now be able to sell Oracle shops on the same story which it has successfully worked with dozens of SAP customers. The story line is simple: start with our hosted solution first. If you like it, you can eventually license it directly and move it behind your firewall. But in the meantime, we will not only get it working for you. We'll also provide the enabling services and expertise required to help you build traction.
Still, this type of message will not play as well from a truly lines-drawn competitive standpoint given that the product focus is sourcing and not procurement. Why? Because when it comes to sourcing, the secret truth is that there’s virtually no benefit of going with your incumbent ERP provider (unlike e-procurement) today, given the limited amount of integration required between sourcing platforms and back-end systems. It's plausible though unlikely that an SAP customer might chose Oracle's sourcing product through Hubwoo -- or vice versa -- simply because they think it's a better tool. This is why, in fact, that Ariba and Emptoris, among others, have been able to build greater marketshare than SAP an Oracle in the sourcing market to begin with. Hence, I'm guessing that hosting Oracle Sourcing is really just the first step to a broader Oracle/Hubwoo agreement that extends into the procure-to-pay process. Stay tuned for further analysis as this story develops.
- Jason Busch
Personal observation on the matter. While I understand the potential for confusion here, the fact is that Hubwoo's past relationship with Oracle was worth comparing to the SAP-hubwoo engagement only in the "old" world of outsourcing. That is, the world where small-scale, one-off implementations were called "service offerings" and suddendly everybody was doing everything with everyone. In the "new" world of outsourcing (and to an even stronger extent when talking about services on-demand), i.e. after the one-offs have shown their scarce financial viability for both client and provider, that service delivery model has shown its limits.
That is why since last year SAP and Hubwoo have started a collaboration that is factually of a different nature, focusing on joint and long-term build up and commercialization of replicable platforms that feature a stronger level of standardization and consistent application of best-practices. We have discovered that there is a lot of pent-up demand in this model, as long as the collaboration with the partner is not the traditional "sales-enablement-cum-marketing" one.
I am happy to elaborate on this but I believe that the best is a direct conversation with Hubwoo directly on this. I feel that you have come across a very commonly spread perception, and I believe this is good fodder for further analysis.
All the best,
Gianni
Gianni Giacomelli, Head of Strategy SAP BPO