SAP paints new UI face for mid-market

All-In-One to sport new front-end

The release of the latest All-In-One is based on MySAP ERP 2005 and SAP CRM and promises a “dramatically enhanced” user experience with role-based interface and the ability to run familiar tools such as Excel for reporting. Although the software is available in the UK with immediate effect, users will have to wait up to six months for the more advanced Project Muse interface that was first shown off last June. Project Muse is the codename for a new GUI that taps Adobe Flash and other tools to create a richer front end.

The user-interface changes are in line with broader efforts to demystify SAP by offering simpler tools for accessing data. SAP has a partnership with Microsoft called Duet that builds bridges between Office applications and SAP back-end data, for example.

SAP will also apply its Best Practices portfolio of horizontal and vertical business scenarios so that firms can mimic the activities of peers and larger operations.

“It’s a very strong market for SAP and the challenge for these customers is to keep the functionality of [enterprise SAP installations] but keep the deployment time down to two to three months,” said Dale Vile of analyst firm Freeform Dynamics.

“These businesses don’t have the luxury of taking people out of the business to learn a new system and the SAP user interface has not been the friendliest for users to get up to speed on. Anything that cuts training time is welcome.”

Vile noted that the release comes as SAP is under pressure from old rivals such as Oracle and newer ones such as Microsoft with its Dynamics line.

Although SAP last year made its move to challenge the likes of Salesforce.com with hosted products, UK vice-president for small and medium-sized enterprises Ciaran Rafferty said that he foresees no conflict with All-In-One, which targets customers with between £100m and 700m in revenues.