Friday Rant: SAP – Betting on the Half-Life of the Frictionless On-Demand Platform
I've written about SAP's Frictionless acquisition countless times on Spend Matters -- what it meant initially, the advantages it provided SAP, its disadvantages, and how the platform would ultimately become part of a broader On-Demand strategy encompassing a range of business applications. Now, it appears, a number of sources indirectly tied to -- though not employed by -- SAP are suggesting that the venerable ERP provider will soon kill off the Frictionless platform in favor of its home-grown Business ByDesign SaaS platform (originally aimed at just the SMB market). I reached out to SAP this week, and the contact I spoke with suggested that this is unequivocally not the case (when it comes to e-sourcing), and that we can expect to see the Frictionless platform continue to serve as the foundation for a range of On-Demand initiatives for some time. However, not everyone is convinced.
Spend Matters has heard from multiple SAP partners in both the SI and BPO realms that SAP plans to change to ByDesign as soon as possible. (Two went so far as to suggest that the only reason the e-sourcing product remains on the product slate for 2010 is that its sales team would be in open rebellion if it were taken away.) My source at SAP again denies this rumor, insisting that the legacy platform is still very much alive; however, this source also said that when it comes to delivering a defined set of functionality and underlying capabilities, the ultimate choice of platforms is irrelevant.
At the end of the day, despite all this rabble-rousing, I also believe that it doesn't matter whether or not SAP keeps the Frictionless solution; Frictionless' fundamental strength was always its underlying architecture and configurability, rather than any functional superiority (or usability, however much it's improving today). What SAP customers and partners should be more concerned about is whether SAP ends up swapping out a solution in 2011 -- or whenever -- that is not yet at the functional level of the previous product. This would be just the type of boneheaded corporate move that large software companies are known to make, and it would, without question, cause open rebellion among partners and those in the field engaged in sales cycles (not to mention customers, if forced to switch prematurely).
Enough analysis here. What are your thoughts on how long SAP will end up keeping the Frictionless platform alive? (In getting in a final word this morning, I must commend the Frictionless team for originally building out a SaaS platform that was way ahead of its time.)
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Kevin Potts
Vice President of Product Management and Marketing
Emptoris
"I want no inquiries made. I want no acts of vengeance. I want you to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families. This war stops now."
1. This is hilarious: "I want no inquiries made. I want no acts of vengeance. I want you to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families. This war stops now."
2. Kevin, you're being very transparent here, and TheGodfather should know by now that nearly all companies have blogs/commentators with POVs that at least loosely support their products now. Your comment was on point.
It's not unusual for a large technology vendor to periodically re-examine the underlying architecture of a product line in order to consider what needs to be in place 5 years hence. This would mean considering scenarios such as re-factoring code or even re-writing it, knowing it's years to complete that and years more to migrate all customers from the legacy code base. I'm in the midst of such a review right now with one of my products (not related to supply chain whatsoever).
Frictionless' architecture dates to 1999, so for it to be relevant to market need 10 years later is goodness. This is in part due to the flexibility Jason mentions.
In the past six months / coming six months, however, more multi-national companies will have switched / will switch to SAP for eSourcing than at any point in time since 2006. This is not marketing hyperbole or bluster – I can name them. At least it is true in the part of the world I that focus on (UK/Europe). I see many organisations switching platforms – ostensibly replacing ‘like-for-like’ – for reasons that have nothing to do with the features and functions of their current providers. These organisations are instead basing their decisions on overall TCO, alignment with IT strategy (e.g. existing investment in SAP), and SAP’s vision for CLM within the enterprise. The widespread adoption of hosted delivery models will likely accelerate this trend – regardless it is inevitable and it really is a one-way door toward SAP.
In this context I don’t see SAP killing off / setting back this cultivated revenue stream with a sudden change of architecture. It didn’t happen in 2006, and I don’t see it happening now – especially when the pipeline is so strong among the world’s largest enterprises. I also don’t think I am as biased as might be inferred from my background - I talk to a lot of companies and I think my views mainly reflect the underlying structural economics of the market.
I could be wrong about this, of course. It’s just that if I am wrong I will be shocked, dismayed, and very, very surprised.
My disclosure – I am the former Founder of Frictionless, spent 2 years at SAP, and am now a Hubwoo Director in the UK. This is my first post here.
Thanks for the kinds words about Frictionless – I am very proud of the collective achievement and all that contributed to it along the way.