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Better known as
an ERP system provider for large corporations, SAP is now
targeting SMBs with a new mySAP All-in-one package.
By Lee Ser Wei
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SAP is banking on its
brand to enter the SMB (small and medium business) market.
Better known as an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system
provider for large corporations, SAP is targeting SMBs with
a new mySAP All-in-one package that starts at $199,000, with
financing options available from resellers such as IBM and
Hewlett-Packard (HP), said Sun Whye Mun, director of SMB
Solutions for SAP Asia Pacific.
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SAP has also announced,
jointly with HP, the opening of the first regional SMB OneSource
Centre in Singapore. MySAP All-in-one is also being offered
under IBM's Industry Solutions Portfolio. These initiatives
target the bigger SMBs using the respective vendors' server
platforms.
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SAP defines SMBs as companies
that have an annual turnover of less than US$100 million
($178 million).
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Besides pricing its SMB
products cheaper by a factor of 10, another part of SAP's
SMB strategy is to partner local channels that have specific
expertise in each verticals. Chan Wai Leong, managing director
of SAP Singapore said that a key element of SAP's strategy
is to provide "localised, industry-specific business
solutions", as opposed to just "shrinking big business
solutions for smaller companies".
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In line with this, SAP
has announced four pioneer partners for the rollout of its
All-in-one offering. These are Encore Applications Services,
Genovate Solutions, ISS Consulting and Unisoft Infotech.
They currently cover verticals from heavy manufacturing to
food and beverage industries. Each partner is given up to
US$1 million in subsidy for additional training and costs
in providing mySAP solutions.
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Niam Chong Lee, managing
director of Encore, said one of the concerns that has been
voiced out by SMBs is that SAP has a reputation for taking
long periods to deploy, and this would hurt the agility that
is associated with the success of SMBs, he said.
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With All-in-one, implementation
can be reduced to three months to a year, depending on the
needs and schedule of the customers, he noted.
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SAP has also joined the
Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore's iLIUP (local
industry upgrading programme) initiative to promote technology
transfer and exchange of best-practice business processes
with local IT companies.
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In a separate announcement,
IBM has announced low-cost email alternatives targeted at
the SMB market.
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IBM and Lightspeed Technologies,
which provides managed server subscriptions in Asia Pacific,
have jointly announced the availability of the LFS server,
an all-in-one package targeting smaller companies looking
for a cost-effective email system. The LFS uses Linux on
IBM's eServer xSeries and is fully managed, and maintained
by Lightspeed NOC. Users can access this Linux email solution
at only $14 a day.
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IBM is also pushing Bynari's
InsightServer on its eServer iSeries as a Linux-based mail
server product that provides a functional alternative to
Microsoft Exchange and existing enterprise messaging servers.
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InsightServer uses a centralised
architecture that differentiates it from other messaging
servers, and also touts a smooth migration from a Windows
platform over to a Linux platform, while maintaining all
the core groupware functionalities of Microsoft Exchange
such as calendar sharing features. The software is also able
to work with all versions of Outlook.
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