SAP Offers New Hosting Option For Business One Resellers

Tuesday the company said the new SAP Business One OnDemand, unveiled at the CeBIT 2012 conference in Hanover, Germany, is targeted at small business and organizations that want to implement their first ERP package, but don't want to incur a big, up-front capital expenditure.

SAP Business One bundles financial management, CRM, sales, inventory control and operations capabilities into a single application package for small businesses. Some 34,000 customers run Business One and SAP executives have pointed to its rapidly growing sales as proof that the company – largely known for selling enterprise-class applications to big corporations – can effectively sell through channel partners to SMB customers.

Related: SAP Develops Channel-Only 'Big Data' Systems For SMEs

SAP sells Business One exclusively through the channel as an on-premise software package, as well as allowing partners to host the application for customers on a dedicated basis. But until now solution providers have not been able to host the software on a multi-tenant basis under which they can support multiple customers using a single instance of the application.

SAP has added a layer of technology, including a new user interface and new life-cycle management and provisioning capabilities, to create SAP Business One OnDemand, said Rinse Tamsma, a senior vice president in SAP's Ecosystem & Channel operation who's responsible for the company's Business One and Business All-in-One products.

The SAP Business One OnDemand software will be sold exclusively through the channel, Tamsma said in an interview, with SAP not hosting the application itself.

Partners, who are expected to bundle the application with other services, will pay SAP a per-user subscription fee and set their own prices for what they charge customers. Hosting partners will be required to obtain an SAP hosting certification, according to the company.

SAP has been slowly-but-steadily expanding into the realm of cloud computing. Its SAP Business ByDesign product is a set of on-demand ERP applications targeting mid-market customers. Channel partners can resell the Business ByDesign service, but it's hosted exclusively by SAP.

Last month SAP acquired SuccessFactors, a developer of cloud-based human capital management applications, for $3.4 billion in a move the company is counting on to further expand its cloud computing efforts.