SAP under fire: Did the company drop the ERP ball by chasing SOA?

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SAP under fire: Did the company drop the ERP ball by chasing SOA?

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"For SAP, the year 2007 will be the most critical one in the recent history," Angeli wrote. "While the company is still working on revamping its product line, the competitors are preparing to attack. While the ABAP engine makes slight progress, the ERP components still wait for many enhancements requested by customers. This negligence will play well into the hands of SAP challengers, mainly Microsoft with its Dynamics AX."

Rob Ericsson, president of L10 Systems of Roanoke, Va., agrees that Microsoft is set to give SAP trouble in the small and midsized market. He concedes that SAP's offerings are more robust, but Dynamics will probably be "good enough" for many smaller companies that don't have millions to spend on IT.

"[Microsoft Dynamics] has a very nice user interface and probably lower TCO," Ericsson said. "I've worked with SAP in medium-sized businesses [less than $20 million in revenue], and it was a struggle for the internal IT department to maintain the SAP environment and keep it moving forward. Small companies have a difficult time attracting and retaining skilled SAP administrators and developers."
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