SAP will delay general availability of its Business ByDesign Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, according to German news source Handelsblatt. Given that SAP wanted Business ByDesign to bring in $1 billion a year by 2010, the delay represents a significant setback in SAP’s attempt to win a chunk of the lucrative SaaS market.

ByDesign is already out on a trial basis, but it hasn’t picked up as much traction as expected. At Cebit, SAP revealed that ByDesign had 150 customers. By contrast, SaaS market leader Salesforce.com claims 41,000 customers.

An SAP developer speaking to Handelsblatt claimed (in German) that ByDesign was suffering from performance issues and bugs that would delay general availability until perhaps the end of 2009. That gives Salesforce.com, NetSuite, and other SaaS vendors another eighteen months to keep dominating a market that none of the majors (including SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft) have been able to crack.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor