SAP offers hosted CRM

SAP has announced that it will be providing a hosted CRM service as a part of its mySAP CRM. The service will cater to the CRM needs of the large and mid-sized enterprise customers of SAP. SAP feels that the vast majority of its 100,600 installed applications should benefit from the addition of the on-demand capability. SAP will have to compete with Salesforce.com for the SME segment. NetSuite, which is another player in the SME segment, provides web-based CRM and e-commerce solutions. It feels that SAP may well target the SME segment with its present offering.

SAP is going to have to work extra hard in establishing a presence in the SME market as it is a latecomer in the segment which already has established players like Salesforce.com, Siebel, and NetSuite. SAP will also have to contend with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

SAP has priced its hosted CRM offering at $ 75 per user per month, the price can go up to $ 125 per user per month. SAP is offering its service at around the same price points as its competitors. SAP is aiming at integrating its offering with all the diverse technologies that an enterprise with its offices all over the globe may be using. To this end, SAP is working with Microsoft on the Mendocino project for integrating SAP with Microsoft desktop applications.