I’ve written about SAP’s Frictionless acquisition countless times on Spend Matters — what it meant initially, the advantages it provided SAP, its disadvantages, and how the platform would ultimately become part of a broader On-Demand strategy encompassing a range of business applications. Now, it appears, a number of sources indirectly tied to — though not employed by — SAP are suggesting that the venerable ERP provider will soon kill off the Frictionless platform in favor of its home-grown Business ByDesign SaaS platform (originally aimed at just the SMB market). I reached out to SAP this week, and the contact I spoke with suggested that this is unequivocally not the case (when it comes to e-sourcing), and that we can expect to see the Frictionless platform continue to serve as the foundation for a range of On-Demand initiatives for some time. However, not everyone is convinced.
Spend Matters has heard from multiple SAP partners in both the SI and BPO realms that SAP plans to change to ByDesign as soon as possible. (Two went so far as to suggest that the only reason the e-sourcing product remains on the product slate for 2010 is that its sales team would be in open rebellion if it were taken away.) My source at SAP again denies this rumor…
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