NetSuite to poach SAP customers

NetSuite is going after SAP customers following news the German vendor will be winding down its Business ByDesign solution.

NetSuite has announced a Business ByDesign 'Sunset Migration' program aiming to incentivise customers to make the switch to its ERP platform.

NetSuite chief executive Zach Nelson took a jab at SAP by describing the SAP customer experience as painful.

"We are ready to turn SAP customers' pain into delight," said Nelson.

"SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott once stated that SAP would see how tough NetSuite was when he threw Business ByDesign like a 99-mile-per-hour fastball at us. Now, SAP is seeing how tough their customers are by pulling the plug on Business ByDesign."

NetSuite will offer SAP "customers in good standing" one free year of subscription and free data migration to NetSuite.

[Related: How SAP Australia learned to love the channel]

SAP confirmed last week developments on its Business ByDesign platform will be throttled following the transition to its HANA in-memory platform.

The change to the new platform will affect SAP partners' bottom line, said Brian Pereira, managing director of Sydney-based Business ByDesign integrator CN Group.

"Partners have made significant investments to get in the marketplace and every time SAP changes their roadmap, it affects our return on investment."

CN Group, which has 80 staff and multiple east coast offices, became a NetSuite partner in January. It won its first client within 90 days.

The company also remains an SAP partner.

Pereira described sales of ByDesign as underwhelming. "The expectation was it would take off as SAP's premium cloud product. It certainly hasn't performed," he told CRN.

This is not the first time has SAP changed the roadmap for Business ByDesign, which was launched in 2007 only to be pulled back and relaunched in 2010.

Pereira added that SAP had left partners in the dark when it came to communicating its eventual transition to the HANA in-memory platform.

"SAP hasn't been great about communicating with their partners. Everyone was panicking at the time to find out what [the reports] actually meant."

SAP has 1000 businesses – ranging from 10 employees to 9900 users – on its Business ByDesign platform. In comparison, NetSuite claims to have more than 16,000 organisations and subsidiaries using its solution worldwide.

SAP Australia did return calls when contacted by CRN.

Updated 29/10/2013:

 SAP Australia's Perry Manross, director of communications, provided the following comment: 

"SAP Business ByDesign continues to be part of the SAP Cloud portfolio and continues to be supported and actively promoted in its current scope through our extensive partner ecosystem.

"Optimising SAP's cloud portfolio on our HANA platform means a dramatic price-performance improvement with all the benefits of simplicity in the cloud for all our customers."