ASP may revive ailing market

By ADAM GIFFORD

Deloitte Consulting is trying to breathe new life into the SAP market in New Zealand by teaming up with TelstraSaturn to deliver SAP applications over the internet.

They are targeting manufacturing and local government with a cut-down application suite that will be available for a monthly fee under the ASP (application service provider) model.

While ASP has been widely touted over the last few years and has had some success in the United States and Europe, New Zealand businesses have been slow to embrace the concept.

Deloitte Consulting has the largest SAP implementation practice in the country and is strong in the local government and Government sectors.

After good sales in the late 1990s, as organisations bought ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems before the Y2K changeover, sales of SAP licences to new sites appear to have languished.

Most of the large deals last year were won by rival JD Edwards. The German-made software tends to be bought by the largest organisations and the market in New Zealand is saturated.

SAP New Zealand manager Viv Gurrey said ASP would get SAP into the small and medium-enterprise market.

Tier-one ERP software was typically large and complex, with long implementations. "With ASP there is a significant reduction," she said.

Deloitte Consulting outsourcing director John McKenzie said the time was right for ASP, and its sister company in Australia was also planning a similar partnership.

TelstraSaturn corporate development director Deanne Weir said one customer was "ready to go" and some existing SAP customers were considering transferring to ASP.