SAP responds to criticism of Business ByDesign

But the SAP User Group wants more transparency

Following considerable criticism of the slow uptake of SAP's SaaS offering Business ByDesign, Ian Anstey, UK Country Manager for SAP Business ByDesign argued that there is much to be positive about.

Anstey spoke exclusively to Computing at the SAP end user event in Manchester on 22 November.

The criticism centres around SAP's prediction in 2007 that it would have rolled out the product to approximately 10,000 users by 2010. The company actually reported just 100 customers in September this year.

Anstey conceded that the number of users was low, but argued that the company has retained up to 80 per cent of them.

He also said: "In the UK, we have doubled our customer base in the past six months."

"Within that growth people have been taking their time and asking whether this was the right move for their business," he added.

Alan Bowling, chairman of the SAP User Group, reiterates criticism SAP has received in the past and insists more transparency is needed.

"It's odd that SAP is not willing to discuss actual figures for Business ByDesign, because it's blatantly obvious it doesn't have many customers. Doubling [the customer base] could mean going from one customer to two," said Bowling.

"We have been asking SAP for four years who its customers are. It won't give us those details."

"The bigger the user group the more effective it can be - both for its users and for SAP".

But Bowling gives his own opinion on why uptake of Business ByDesign has been slow. "For some reason, people think you need to have everything in the cloud," he said.

"But it's just not like that. Customer's haven't grasped the concept of hybrid models and seem to have been confused by all the noise out there surrounding cloud migration."