Also, the preliminary response among Sara Lee's business users has been "very positive," he said. I'm getting questions like 'When can we have it.'"

But Sara Lee has not yet decided to purchase the software, and there are substantial underlying tasks to perform as well, he added.

"This is giving us the horsepower [to analyze data] but we need to have harmonized and structured data underneath it."

The company also hasn't done a deep investigation into security measures or protocols, he said.

But the tool does seem to have some clear positives, according to Vloemans. For one, it doesn't require much training. "If you can use a PC then you can learn how to use it in one or two minutes."

Secondly, Sara Lee has a broad BI strategy, and making changes to respond to user demands, such as for a new type of report, is costly, he said.

Vloemans said he has "a gut feeling," but is not yet certain that Explorer could cut expenses overall, even weighed against the cost of preparing the data to be searched by Explorer.

Meanwhile, Apotheker's keynote also briefly touched upon SAP's plans for on-demand software, which include Web-based extensions for its on-premise business applications. Extensions for expense management and human capital management are in the pipeline, he said.

SAP is also continuing to work on its Business ByDesign integrated ERP suite for the midmarket.

The company has slowed the rollout of Business ByDesign while it works to ensure it can make enough of a profit at scale. SAP executive board member Bill McDermott said in a recent interview that the company would likely not ramp up Business ByDesign until the end of this year.

However, a running Business ByDesign system will be on display at Sapphire this week, according to Apotheker.