Clapton and SAP - What a Combo....

              'Slowhand' Eric Clapton and SAP

As a very long-time Eric Clapton fan, I was overjoyed to see him last night as the Deloitte sponsored entertainment at the Sapphire conference. He and his band performed about 20 numbers over the course of two hours. And, thankfully, they played the full-on, electric guitar version of Layla.

Clapton earned the nickname 'Slowhand' because of the way he'd make audiences wait for him to replace broken guitar strings on stage. Frustrated audience members would sit there and slowly clap as a means of getting him to move faster (see this Wikipedia entry for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Clapton). While he may have been a slow, perfectionist with his guitar equipment (i.e., his tools of the trade), he could flat play a guitar and he could be really fast with it too. I was always struck at his versatility - going from blues to rock to a love song to something altogether different.

SAP this week showed that they share some of those same characteristics of Slowhand. In their Business ByDesign product line, the company is taking a more measured approach to ramping up sales for their newest creation. Analysts, Wall Street, customers, etc. can sit there and clap all they want but SAP, like Ernst & Julio Gallo wines, won't release a product before its time. Business ByDesign is going to get more functionality in its vertical application capabilities and the operational cost will be reduced before the company gets really aggressive with its marketing.

But, Slowhand SAP will likely deliver a screaming hot, fast solution when it's ready to let the market play with Business ByDesign in a big way. Sure, companies in six countries can buy it now but the real fun will be in watching 1000s of customers pounding on this in 12-18 months.

The Business By design product is already quite strong now. Some of the Enterprise Irregulars and I wondered if this conservative approach to marketing Business ByDesign is really the right strategy for SAP. In 12-18 months, competitors will have better solutions as well. Should SAP strike now while it has already has considerable market advantages?

How strong is Business ByDesign? Here are some interesting points to ponder:

• as shipped, the product comes with 400 reports and 1000 infocubes
• the product has one of the most functionally complete SaaS solutions on the market although top SAP executives report that prospects want more. My kid never gets a big enough allowance but sometimes we have to be selective in what we hear and what we act upon.
• the product has already seen TCO and performance improvements. Where the product only supported 25 concurrent users/blade, that number has doubled and doubled again
• the User Interface has been upgraded significantly. It still has a spartan look but this is to allow for faster screen refreshes (see previous post).