This note concerns the launch of SAP Business One by SAP AG (NYSE:SAP), the pairing of SAP and the Tax and Business Services (TBS) unit of American Express, and the delivery of 13 new mid-market solutions designed specifically for companies with $50 to $500 million in annual revenues by PeopleSoft Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT). For details of these announcements see Part One.
The fact that the mid-market and the SMB segment are the next frontiers and a promised land for all the enterprise vendors, small and large alike, has long not been news. Still, the willingness of smaller IT departments to go for more sophisticated technology beyond the all-too-common dispersed islands of information on Excel spreadsheets, Access-based reports and queries, or even managers' pocket paper-pads and post-it notes, does not guarantee any vendor an easy ride. That has been proven by a number of trials-and-errors, and consequent strategy reiterations that the larger enterprise vendors have espoused during last several years.
As well known and much publicized, the major factors of success in business applications for the mid market segment have traditionally been price, speed of implementation, vertical focus, product scalability and scope expandability, and a single point of contact. Therefore, all the Tier 1 vendors discussed in Part Two seem to have captured (or at least tackled) most of these, partly owing to finally breaking its product in more manageable components (which provides for faster phased implementations and system agility) and Internet-enabling it (which provides for easier deployability and user interface intuitiveness). Their solutions within ERP, CRM, SCM, portals. Product lifecycle management (PLM), and supplier relationship management (SRM) functionality provide a wide scope of features, and very few smaller vendors can provide tightly integrated applications of this magnitude under one umbrella.
Furthermore, these vendors have the strongest product technology in terms of scalability, and support for almost all industry relevant platforms and/or middleware standards, with Web service standards like eXtensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) being already embedded within their latest product releases. These facts, bundled with their corporate viability and mind share, have encouraged many small companies to opt for their offering, which has not been quite conceivable until very recently.
The fact that the mid-market and the SMB segment are the next frontiers and a promised land for all the enterprise vendors, small and large alike, has long not been news. Still, the willingness of smaller IT departments to go for more sophisticated technology beyond the all-too-common dispersed islands of information on Excel spreadsheets, Access-based reports and queries, or even managers' pocket paper-pads and post-it notes, does not guarantee any vendor an easy ride. That has been proven by a number of trials-and-errors, and consequent strategy reiterations that the larger enterprise vendors have espoused during last several years.
As well known and much publicized, the major factors of success in business applications for the mid market segment have traditionally been price, speed of implementation, vertical focus, product scalability and scope expandability, and a single point of contact. Therefore, all the Tier 1 vendors discussed in Part Two seem to have captured (or at least tackled) most of these, partly owing to finally breaking its product in more manageable components (which provides for faster phased implementations and system agility) and Internet-enabling it (which provides for easier deployability and user interface intuitiveness). Their solutions within ERP, CRM, SCM, portals. Product lifecycle management (PLM), and supplier relationship management (SRM) functionality provide a wide scope of features, and very few smaller vendors can provide tightly integrated applications of this magnitude under one umbrella.
Furthermore, these vendors have the strongest product technology in terms of scalability, and support for almost all industry relevant platforms and/or middleware standards, with Web service standards like eXtensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) being already embedded within their latest product releases. These facts, bundled with their corporate viability and mind share, have encouraged many small companies to opt for their offering, which has not been quite conceivable until very recently.
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