SAP claims customers migrating from Infor for better business

Call me a cynic, but that’s rather better than damning Infor with faint praise; it is Goliath giving gravitas to a not-so-puny David on a plate – forgive the mixed metaphor. That said, SAP claims that its customers’ shift of loyalty from Infor to SAP – no trivial step – is indicative of “its ability to meet customer needs for scalable, fully integrated business solutions perfectly suited to address individual business demands”. Which tells us not a lot. Infor would be within its rights to argue precisely the same. Nevertheless, SAP goes on to cite ex-Infor new customers, like Bamboo Pipeline and Strategix, as well as reseller partners, such as AchieveIT and Long Business Systems – and adds that SMEs currently account for more than two thirds of its total customer base. Which tells us little more: with a solution portfolio spanning Business All-in-One, Business ByDesign and Business One, together addressing what’s bound to be the lion’s share of the market, that’s hardly a surprise, either. The nub of this, though, might be the final point SAP’s spin doctors make, and it is this. That, in an effort to avoid being tied to a single vendor, software development and reseller partners are switching from Infor to SAP, due to the superior partner programs offered through SAP PartnerEdge, SAP’s investment in its channel programme, and SAP’s open technology. The latter we can surely discount: Infor is hardly a laggard when it comes to open, advanced technology. The former, though? Maybe SAP is just working much harder to attract the SMEs upon which it will ultimately have to depend much more.