TAKEAWAY: Intelligent Enterprise's Mary Hayes Weier reports that, after announcing its plans to delay its Business ByDesign offering for 12-18 months, SAP is actually planning a SaaS effort to target large companies. Business ByDesign had been planned as a mid-market offering initially.

The strategy will consist of offering component applications based on the platform developed for Business ByDesign, and they will be hosted and managed by SAP but with integration with customers' on-site systems. The first, scheduled for 2009, is likely to target collaborative supplier management. Weier compares the strategy to Microsoft's "Software Plus Services" intentions of complementing on-site with on-demand software.

SOURCE: Intelligent Enterprise