This entry was posted by Acacia Krebs on August 12, 2010 at 10:13 pm under SAP Corporate News.

In recent months, SAP has made it clear that the small- and medium-sized business sector is a serious target with the announcement of its cloud-based business-intelligence solution Business ByDesign. However, a report from Computer Weekly found a number of leading IT experts are skeptical about SAP’s viability as an option for SMBs.

Clive Longbottom, an analyst for market research firm Quocirca, believes SAP will struggle to generate considerable revenue for software licenses by targeting SMBs. A number of small companies have used SAP and experienced success, however, a number of IT advisors and consultants believe SAP data management solutions are too cumbersome to implement at SMBs. Companies without well-qualified IT professionals are especially reticent of life with SAP – even with the positive reviews it has received from some.

"The perception outside of Germany is that [SAP] is expensive, complex and constraining. And there’s already a lot of mid-market players positioned to serve this market," Longbottom told the news provider.

With its attention turned toward the SMB market, SAP recently announced it hopes to have more than 1 billion customers by 2015. While it currently has about 35 million under contract, current adoption rates lead SAP executives to believe it can grow at a rapid pace in the next five years.