SAP: 'We want deep, meaningful relationships'

SAP AG laid out the path for a deep relationship with the software applications giant on Tuesday during its Enterprise Services Partner Summit in San Francisco.

SAP, which also unveiled its Enterprise Services Community program at the event, is looking to build up its ecosystem of partners and customers. SAP is hoping to use this ecosystem to help it and its partners identify and develop software that's needed to resolve any customer challenges, around the way they run their business.

Shai Agassi, SAP product and technology group president, said during a keynote speech to SAP partners and customers at the summit: "We believe the ecosystem will be key to our success. We are not paying lip service to that. We actually think there is a very interesting community that is getting built and it's represented in this room."

With its Enterprises Services Community program, SAP hopes to create a governing and compliance body comprised of independent software developers, system integrators and customers. The program is designed to serve as a means for participants to grow their business and get feedback on their ideas.

Agassi said: "If a company puts in a solution in the market that makes other people fail, then we all fail as a community. This will be a model for enterprise services and how new ideas are proposed, developed and offered into in the market. It's an IP model to protect what you want to protect and one to protect everyone in the community, so you can't come after someone just because you gave them an idea for an enterprise service interface."

The community is launching with more than 60 members, including Adobe, Cisco Systems and Vendavo.

Analysts and some SAP partners have noted that in the past the applications giant did not seem that interested in fostering a strong relationship with its partners.

Brendan Barnicle, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said SAP and other companies that seek to build a software stack will increasingly come into conflict with their channel partners as they enlarge their footprint in various markets.

Agassi said: "It will be a systematic process. The [community partners] have to be successful for this whole model to work. If you don't make money in this process, we're not successful. We know that and we understand that."

SAP is also bringing a number of its partner programs under the umbrella group of SAP Partner Edge. The new structure will feature three levels - gold, silver and associate - depending on the depth of the relationship and commitment between the parties.

Aggasi said: "You have to make some tough choices," recalling SAP's acquisition of his former company.

He added: "Once you do your application for SAP, do you do it for Oracle, Microsoft and everybody else? I said you have to focus on SAP. Don't dilute yourself, or you are in the same spot as everyone to the point you won't bring in value."

He noted to SAP partners it does not matter if they want a relationship with its competitors but they should ultimately select only one to focus on.

That was reiterated by Zia Yusuf, the recently named executive vice president of the NetWeaver platform ecosystem.

Yusuf said: "The deeper the product and go to market commitment, the deeper the partnership."

But one partner noted NetWeaver has had a slow adoption rate among customers, making it a little more difficult to enter into a virtually exclusive relationship with SAP.

Other partners are content with NetWeaver's adoption rate. One of those customers is Stein Onsrud, chief executive of TraceTracker, which became a NetWeaver independent software developer last year.

Onsrud, however, said his company has an open architect for tracking movement of items and is currently focused on the food industry.

He said: "We have an open architect, so we don't want to focus on one vendor. But SAP is core to our solution and is a dominant player in our market."

Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com