It's easy to get stuck on the ongoing SAP vs. Oracle smackdown thinking it's the only game in town. Sure enough, with Oracle's rapid growth through acquisitions (Siebel, PeopleSoft etc.) the two 800 lb. gorillas tend to hog the ERP stage while smaller fry are merely viewed as bite-sized morsels waiting to be gobbled up. That may not be entirely true, as reported by News editor Mark Brunelli in his recent article SAP, Oracle challenged by smaller ERP vendors. 

A study by Aberdeen Group reveals that Infor Global Solutions and QAD Inc. may in fact be gaining ground in some sectors of the ERP space, primarily through lower TCO. Infor in particular, with its recent purchases of SSA, Extensity and SU, is set to step up considerably. InfoWorld's China Martens reports that Infor is gunning for becoming a $3B business next year. Nothing to sneeze at for sure.

Meanwhile, Oracle's course-correction regarding its Fusion initiative is beginning to have an impact, as described by SearchSAP expert Josh Greenbaum last month. Does this spell trouble for SAP, or is the German Giant far enough ahead in this race that its ERP crown remains untouchable?

For the next couple years, sure — but what will the situation be like, say, around 2010? Please take a moment to reply to this post or send us an email with your take on what the future will hold for SAP. One random reader will receive a neat book bundle:

• Designing Composite Applications
• SAP BW Reporting and Analysis
• mySAP CRM Interaction Center

Regards,
Matt Danielsson
Editor

Is SAP planning a major offensive against archrival Oracle? It certainly seems to be the case, judging by a recent interview with SAP's Jeff Nolan. Veteran IT reporter and blogger Tom Foremski spoke to Nolan about a number of SAP-related issues, and one of the things that caught my eye was a reference to a new campaign aimed at the Redwood Shores giant.

"Nolan's mission is to develop a strategy that will disrupt Oracle and also use blogging and the new media technologies such as wikis, in building an internal SAP blogosphere," the blog states. Foremski goes on to mention an external component to the strategy, aiming to get the SAP-centered discussion out there as broadly as possible.

Few specifics were given about this new initiative, but with a name like "Attack Oracle" it seems like a fair bet SAP isn't planning to stand down anytime soon.

One area to keep an eye on is the mid-market, where it seems SAP is planning a rather aggressive push in the years ahead. For starters, SAP's midmarket product All-in-One is headed for a more prominent spot in the SAP lineup. This year it will be fully service-enabled - moving onto NetWeaver across all industries - and next year it's due for getting onto the BPP (Business Process Platform). Secondly, SAP predict they'll to go from roughly 1/3 of revenue coming from the midmarket today to 40-45% in 2010. And that's a slice of a considerably larger pie; SAP expects to grow from today's 32,000 customers to 100,000 by 2010. Those customers will have to come from somewhere.

One final observation: Kagermann spent a lot of time talking about All-in-One at the press event last week. Is he setting the stage for some kind of big announcement about All-in-One at Sapphire next month? Time will tell, but rest assured we'll watch this one closely.

Matt Danielsson
Editor

SearchSAP.com reader Joe Yong submitted his comments on the SAP vs. Oracle feud and won our $100 Amazon gift certificate random prize. Here's his take on the SAP-Oracle issue.

"Oracle is a database company that has been trying to be something else for the past decade," Joe said. "From tools to office productivity to one-stop-shop and more. SAP did a little tap dance around that a few years back and quickly pulled back to their core competence.

At the end of the day, both will continue to exist but SAP will remain the leader and with a much stronger base.

Oracle has the right vision with Fusion middleware. They also have a few independently great pieces of technologies and a few lemons. That's not the issue here. Getting these things to really work together seamlessly and then making them usable to the rest of the world is the issue. SAP has that locked down pat. Sure, they don't have be friendliest or nicest interfaces but SAP has had an incredible track record with their thoroughness in the integration interfaces with SAP applications. From BAPI to DCOM connectors to Web Services, SAP applications are very accessible and already have thousands of customers that integrate their SAP systems with other apps and platforms. Oracle has a long way to go here.

I'm a database guy and have been working on databases for about 15 year, many of those spent along side ERP implementers (remember JBOPS?) Nobody has it figured out as well as SAP. After all, they were founded by a bunch of German, ex-IBMers. It isn't possible to have a more disciplined/structured combination than that."

Food for thought indeed. Another reader had this to say:

"My company has been using R/3 for seven years now in a manufacturing environment involving Make-To-Stock and Repetitive for Automotive," he said. "We use the full product from lead to cash and have implemented numerous modules in-house, along with an upgrade and opening a new company outside the U.S. We utilized almost no consulting to do it with total staff of 2 people assigned to SAP. Does this mean that Oracle would require 0.5 people? I think not. Yes, SAP is complicated, but I see this as a result of the flexibility available in the system."

Not everyone was in favor of Greenbaum's pro-SAP column, however.

"It appears Mr. Joshua Greenbaum is confused between Oracle Fusion Applications and Fusion Middleware," one reader said. "In his first point, he compared NetWeaver and Fusion stating 'SAP has been plugging away at its NetWeaver strategy for several years now, while Oracle recently updated analysts, the press, and some customers at a conference in San Francisco.'

Mr. Greenbaum was wrong in comparing NetWeaver and Fusion Applications. He was comparing apples and oranges. The correct comparison should be between SAP NetWeaver and Oracle Fusion Middleware — the middleware and technology foundation for the next-generation SAP applications and Oracle applications, respectively.
 
While NetWeaver is a reasonable default middleware stack for SAP customers, it is an inferior solution compared to the market leading middleware suites such as IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Many of the NetWeaver components lag behind these market leading solutions, as rated by Gartner, Forrester Research, Burton Group, IDC and other industry analysts. According to these analysts, NetWeaver lags behind in integration, business process management, and master data management, etc. While IBM, BEA, and Oracle middleware suites are widely used in the SAP installed base, NetWeaver is rarely used, if at all, by non-SAP customers.

The reason is primarily due to the immaturity of many NetWeaver components. Furthermore, NetWeaver has many gaping holes. For example, it does not have an Enterprise Service Bus, SOA / Web Services Management, Identity Management, Business Activity Monitoring, and Business Rules Engine.
 
A house needs a strong foundation. Otherwise, it'll be toppled easily in a storm. It's same for the next-generation service-enabled applications. How can SAP win if it has a weak technology foundation, given the inferior SAP NetWeaver? In contrast, Oracle Fusion Middleware is rated leader in most major categories by Gartner and Forrester Research.
 
I encourage Mr. Greenbaum to check his facts and correct me if I am wrong."

We recently asked two prominent experts to argue their respective cases for SAP vs. Oracle. These follow-up columns are their official rebuttals each other's positions.

Greenbaum readily concedes that Oracle's eBusiness Suite performs well, installs relatively easily, and has good middleware and analytics built into the product. But the main issue, he points out, is what the future has in store for the ERP market, and that's where SAP has the upper hand. Furthermore, he dismisses deHenry's historical "misconceptions" about SAP implementation challenges as outdated and flat-out untrue in many cases. Besides, who in the ERP space can claim a 100% success rate across the board? All things considered, he concludes, it's a much better bet to go with SAP's thought-out NetWeaver strategy than jump on Oracle's half-baked Fusion bandwagon and hope for the best.

deHenry, on the other hand, points to adaptability as a key feature of ERP winners — and that's where Oracle shines, she says. If Netweaver is such a wonderful technological innovation, she asks, why isn't the adoption rate higher? In contrast, many of Oracle's Applications customers (the company claimed over 26,000 in September 2005) are already using Fusion technology. In fact, deHenry argues, you can see the difference in the corporate DNA right away — SAP is "seen by many" as an "innovative-free" company, she claims, while Oracle appears to value adaptability to economic and market forces.

Who's right? You be the judge! Click here to read SAP vs. Oracle: Round two, then click here to submit your comments, opinions or anecdotes on the SAP vs. Oracle battle. One random contributor from SearchSAP.com and one random contributor from SearchOracle.com will receive a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate!

Matt Danielsson
Editor

Earlier this week, Shehryar Khan of Abacus Consulting shared a valuable resource in his blog on SAP's Developer Network (SDN). He pointed out that people across the IT landscape are comparing SAP and Oracle applications.

Think of the project manager stuck in the evaluation stages of an ERP decision-making project, who sees SAP's benefits but has trouble articulating them. Think of the SAP sales person who may be asked to evaluate SAP's benefits in light of Oracle's weaknesses. Then think of the IT decision-maker, who must share these ideas with the business side, revealing a new batch of challenges.

There is hope for IT professionals in these scenarios. Khan sings the praises of SearchSAP.com's new face-off feature: SAP vs. Oracle, where industry experts Joshua Greenbaum and Faun deHenry debate the benefits of the two ERP giants.

Make up your own mind — read the SAP vs. Oracle face-off here on SearchSAP.com to see what you think. Don't miss the follow-up article with a boatloat of reader comments. Then check out all of the insightful comments from Shehryar and other SAP professionals on SDN. Can you guess what side the SDN readers are on?

Until next time,
Lauren
Assistant Editor