SAP vs. Oracle, Battle Royale

Mark Brunelli writes "As the battle for business application supremacy heats up, Oracle users are standing by Larry Ellison and Fusion while SAP customers say NetWeaver will lead the way to victory." From the article: "Zoellner, who says he has worked with both Oracle and SAP users throughout his career, believes that the Nucleus Research study cited by deHenry is right on in its conclusion that Oracle's average three-year total cost of ownership (TCO) is 48% lower than SAP's. The business analyst said that the TCO issue is particularly important to companies in developing areas."

Comments

wow

[caffeinemessiah]

if ORACLE's TCO is 48% lower than SAP, just how many small countries' budgets does SAP charge for a small installation?

Re:wow

[tyler_larson]

if ORACLE's TCO is 48% lower than SAP, just how many small countries' budgets does SAP charge for a small installation?

Costs vary (particularly installation and configuration costs), but as a rule of thumb, if your business's income isn't enough to make your state government envious, then SAP is not for you. If all you need is a "small" installation, then you really don't need SAP.

Though I am interested in hearing what Oracle has to offer; I had thought that SAP was the only player in this field, which is why they can charge so much for such a horrible product.

SAP == CRAP

[autopr0n]

Seriously, how many people have ever had a chance to glimpse into the dark heart of SAP? It's very ugly. Hedious even.

It might run business well, but it's hardly very extendable or flexible. Given the price you're better off writing your own system, IMO.

Re:SAP == CRAP

[jools33]

"Seriously, how many people have ever had a chance to glimpse into the dark heart of SAP? It's very ugly. Hedious even.It might run business well, but it's hardly very extendable or flexible. Given the price you're better off writing your own system, IMO."

5 years ago I think this comment was valid.
Having worked in SAP for over 10 years I can partially agree with your comments. Historically SAP has been slow to adapt its central ERP system (R/3). However thats not where the battle is being fought at all - and I think you've missed the point of the article. SAP's new platform - Netweaver really isn't one single system - its a complex architecture not a single platform any more. Its this architecture that Oracle is competing against by acquiring as many of the competition as possible and then trying to integrate them into a single solution. SAP have had a smarter approach where they have mostly not bought out the competition (althought thats not the case with MDM or Toptier). SAP have instead realised about 5 years ago the direction where things were heading and I really believe they are several steps ahead of Oracle now in terms of building a full blown Enterprise Services enabled architecture. In my opinion SAP have neglected updating the central (legacy) ERP system (R/3) in favour of building an enterprise services / integration architecture around the old central product - so much so that the old legacy R/3 system isnt really central anymore - the systems around it such as business intelligence, CRM, APO, Xi, solution manager have taken a much more prominent role - and each of these new systems - whilst running on the same base kernels really are completely reworked in terms of the architecture and APIs on offer.
SAP still have a long way to go - and they could really do with reworking some of those older "hideous" code libraries - particularly on their R/3 platform. With Netweavers Enterprise service architecture - SAP looks to be truly flexible and extensible and leaving its old "hideous" code behind - and I suggest the previous poster take a read on http://sdn.sap.com/ for a more up to date understanding of what SAP today is all about.

Re:Oracle v. SAP? Huh?

[TopSpin]

in the process of buying the pieces to start their own ERP suite

Oracle had a successful ERP platform years before they bought PeopleSoft. ERP is old hat for Oracle. The recent "fusion" work is their attempt to produce a new platform to replace the now rather mature Oracle ERP platform and provide a road for their recently acquired PeopleSoft and JDE customers.

As far as TCO costs go, I wouldn't be surprised if Oracle was cheaper. The stack is, while highly proprietary, fairly streamlined compared to SAP.

The answer

[SuperKendall]

The reason you have not seen an open source SAP is because it's so big and monsterous and hard to figure out what it does, that no-one knows if there's already an open source SAP or not. There could be several right now.

Only half kidding.