On the one hand SAP is overbureaucratised

The comparison is cruel. Whimsical Larry Ellison, star of American computers, with his company Oracle, finally back to the House of the America's Cup. Champagne under the California Sun. The other side of the Atlantic, two Frankfurt, Walldorf is in full winter severity. The headquarters of the German and European software, SAP, King looks like a very modern Castle. At the entrance, control in the towers and in the streets and bridges of this large village closed, thousands of employees to urge, aware of the danger outside. Because the enemy closer. 2009 Results have been disappointing, with a fall in sales of new software by almost 30. Fortunately, the revenues from the maintenance save furniture, but the future is uncertain and faltering morale.

Worried customers and to more aggressive competitors, the first reflex was to land the Lord of the places. Last week, so exit Leo Apotheker, CEO for only nine months, but in the House for more than twenty years. In the aftermath, co-founder returns to the front of the stage, appointed two co-CEO - a specialty SAP - and reduced by almost half the Executive Committee. A remedy of horse to fight an enemy of size.

As Larry Ellison did not Excel as in sailing regattas, it is also an expert in the game of go. But American. A bulldozer blows, he is undermining the foundations of the castle of Walldorf. His offensive began in 2004, when, then world number one of database management software, he decided to become a generalist giant. Five years and fifty acquisitions later, it reached almost to its purposes. His last ways, the manufacturer of Sun computers, brings him past parts that were missing in his puzzle. He is now member of the very select Club of 5, that includes IBM, HP, Microsoft and Cisco around a large cheese, that of the enterprise computing.

And SAP, in all that It is a world to him alone. First because it is, with its 11 billion euros of turnover and its 50,000 employees, the only European company which has in the computer world. Created 36 years ago by four engineers from IBM Germany, the firm is imposed as the global business management software specialist. They allow to have real-time information on the development of activities (sales, shipments, purchasing, accounting...) around the world. Then applications were added to manage customer relations, logistics or human resources. A global market of computer applications for businesses which represent today, according to IDC analysts, 130 billion dollars per year, and whose SAP is the world leader.

Further, in its early days of Silicon Valley young society relied on its strengths: its proximity with the major German and European industrial, automotive, chemistry, or energy. It has therefore naturally sought to develop software closely related to specific trades of these major customers. And, for this, it is is surrounded by fabric of small specialty publishers, consultants and service companies, bringing their knowledge and their products in addition to the software to any SAP. An ecosystem teeming of tens of thousands of partners, first in Germany, then in Europe and the world finally.

World stature is is asserted in the years 2000 through his successful conquest of the United States. It owes much to Oracle, which, by purchasing all of its U.S. competitors one after the other, has made SAP a credible and more reliable than the California cauldron alternative perpetual boiling.

Despite its laboratories worldwide, SAP is a company which is still very German, kneaded of industrial culture, the mode of management College, concerned about growing its ecosystem and always focus on organic growth with acquisitions. The opposite course of Oracle, including development comes primarily from acquisitions, used to retrieve customers parks and make then migrate on its own products.

Larry Ellison is more frankly follower of a strategy of mutually fruitful collaboration between all partners of a transaction.

Certainly, this was the case during these many years where each digging his own furrow: SAP business applications. Microsoft operating systems; Oracle databases. He was also a long-standing SAP partner. But when the fish were enlarged and the water level dropped, the Ocean has become blood red. Everyone went hunting in the waters of the neighbour. With the idea of offering the solution the most complete to the client. This is not necessarily that asks the user, who simply well a common standard, but it is much more remunerative for the editor, who has a need for economies of scale to absorb heavy development costs.

In 2004, Oracle purchased a competitor of SAP, PeopleSoft, starting point of more than 50 acquisitions including Siebel, BEA, Hyperion, and of course Sun. This total is more than $ 35 billion that the most spectacular billionaire of computing, lover of pretty women, fighter aircraft and of offshore races, has put on the table.

At first glance, the German stability appears to be more perennial than Californian activism. This would be true in a world in itself stable and lasting. This is not the case. On the one hand, SAP is over-bureaucratised. Its power in its sector - it team most of the big companies of the world - gave him the point of arrogance that annoys both clients. Its products have become so complex that it takes years to implement, and prices have followed. The drop of water too was the decision in 2008 to unilaterally increase its costs of maintenance, from 17 to 22 of the price of the licence. The revolt was immediate in great users, gathered at a club which is the pride of SAP. Debates have raged. As a general discontent that led the company to machine back and to offer last month the choice of returning to the old formula of maintenance.

In addition, German, whose cost structure is penalized by staff costs higher than its competitors, persists in wanting to offer a fully integrated product consisting of modules interlocking with each other. At the time, the last offers arrive behind the market and are too complex.

This is the moment that were waiting for the Americans, Oracle at the top. They entered in the SAP customers by peripheral applications, such as customer relationship, and with very simple products that do not require sometimes go through computer services. The Citadel is, but the surroundings are attacked.

Favorite weapon is of course the Internet and the famous "cloud computing", to rent the software by the Web service, as it is for the e-mail.

The response of Walldorf has been double. On the one hand, aim the SME market, growing and on which Oracle is not present, and take the opportunity to get his own "cloud". For the moment, not finding test. Pending a new version, the current sales are confidential. "SAP." "They are invisible in our market," scoffs Mark Benioff, the patron of Salesforce, software specialist, a former of Oracle.

Taken between light as Benioff and heavy weights such as Oracle, German is the penalty.

The outcome is little doubt according to analysts, that does not mésestiment the power and jurisdiction of SAP. He buys, either it is purchased. But, as the Chinese saying is marriages as of the besieged fortresses: those who are outside dream enter but those inside dream of leaving.