Brief: SAP Charts Plan To Triple Its Customer BaseBrief: SAP Charts Plan To Triple Its Customer Base

Lengthy, hairy, pricey ERP projects--that's the image SAP is fighting as it tries to grab midsize companies in a bid to triple its customer base in four years.

SAP, with 35,000 customers, wants to hit 100,000 by 2010, getting to where nearly half its revenue comes from companies with less than $1 billion in revenue. It plans to woo them next year with an upcoming version of its midmarket ERP suite, All-In-One, that's more customizable yet easier to implement. While big ERP projects can take several years to complete, Shai Agassi, president of SAP's product and technology group, talked last week about being able to set up ERP for a midsize company within seven days.

Every vendor's chasing the midmarket--Oracle's already big there, Microsoft is making a push with its Dynamics apps, and smaller vendors are entrenched with their vertical industry offerings. And there are wild cards like Workday, the startup by PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield that pitches ERP as a hosted service. While CRM On Demand is SAP's only software-as-a-service offering, it said last week it's mulling such a model for its midmarket product. Reaching that market will take a new sales approach--SAP execs expect 60% of deals in the future will be closed by resellers, compared with just 15% today.

Like other vendors, SAP promises simplicity. Its mySAP 2005 runs on the NetWeaver platform, based on a service-oriented architecture. SAP says it won't upgrade mySAP until 2010, instead offering "enhancement packages" from which customers can add features without changing the core system.

The company also is developing xApps Hub, a portal for customers and partners to share applications they develop. "It's sort of like an iTunes store," Agassi says. "You can see what it is, be able to comment on it, download, test it, see if you like it, and continue to innovate around the model."

SAP comparing itself to Apple? The company knows that, to bag the midmarket, it needs to change its tune.