This week, SAP announced a new partnership with Sybase (using its Unwired Platform) to offer SAP’s ERP and CRM applications on every mobile device in the world (like the iPhone, BlackBerry and on Palm products). Mobile device users will be able to access certain business processes, beginning with functionality from SAP’s CRM application, reported the IDG News Service. The suite also includes a range of critical ERP applications, such as human resources, supply chain and accounting applications. Cool! Wait. This is 2009. What took you so long SAP? In fact, the Sybase mobile platform already has the capability “to bring functionality from SAP Business Suite to mobile devices,” noted the IDG News article, “but it doesn’t do it very well,” conceded Sybase CEO John Chen, at the SAP announcement. “It’s very clunky,” he said. (Enterprise apps on mobile devices have been a challenge thus far “because developers had to build point-to-point connections that made for a hairball of an integration problem,” notes the IDG article.) According to Jack Gold, principal analyst at J.Gold Associates, SAP finally abandoned a “not invented here” mentality with its mobile efforts, realizing it needed outside expertise (as in, Sybase) to help solve its problems. “Part of the problem lies with SAP’s inherent engineering mentality which required it to rely on its own tools and development environment (NetWeaver) to extend its platform to the mobile device,” Gold writes in a research brief. “The problem is, these tools were never quite up to the task.” Technical issues notwithstanding, one has to file the SAP mobile saga under “big opportunity lost” for the world’s largest business applications vendor. “Mobility had been such a strategic void in SAP’s portfolio,” notes Sheryl Kingstone, Yankee’s director of research, via e-mail. “Yankee Group has been stating the importance of mobilizing SAP applications for many years. Despite several attempts, SAP has lacked the domain expertise necessary to truly mobilize their suite.” Yankee Group’s enterprise survey research calls mobile CRM the most strategic application for 2009. (For more on just how much of a game-changer mobile apps can be, see “Inside Pitney Bowes Choice for a Mobile CRM/ERP Solution” and “How Insurance Giant Aflac Made Mobile Applications Its Policy.”) I suppose this is a case of better late than never. However, customers likely won’t see anything enterprise-worthy until the “second half of the year,” according to SAP execs. “SAP and Sybase must move quickly to extend the capabilities to a large subset of the entire SAP suite to satisfy customer demand,” Gold adds, “or risk losing business to SAP’s more mobile-enabled competitors.” Pricing for the mobile apps, notes Bill McDermott, SAP’s president of global field operations, will be “affordable” for its customers. (What’s your definition of affordable, Bill?) Gold, for one, writes that this latest effort will dramatically help SAP’s “mobile image.” But I’m not so sure SAP actually had a “mobile image” in the first place. Related content opinion What CIOs Need to Know About HP's Acquisition of Autonomy Here's why you should be paying attention: it's a big analytics play that could help lead the way to making sense of all the unstructured data that's overwhelming enterprises of all sizes, says analyst Charles King. By Todd R. Weiss Aug 24, 2011 4 mins Business Intelligence Data Warehousing Data Management opinion Enterprise BI Made Simple Will a simplified version of enterprise business intelligence software spur user adoption? Gartner analyst James Richardson thinks so. By Todd R. Weiss Aug 15, 2011 4 mins Business Intelligence Data Management opinion ERP Market Shake-Up: What It Means to Your Company ERP vendors continue to merge and be acquired at a steady pace in 2011. Here are some tips on how you can protect your company's interests as the marketplace continues to shift, from analyst Albert Pang. By Todd R. Weiss Aug 03, 2011 4 mins CIO ERP Systems Enterprise Applications opinion Cut IT Costs for Older ERP Apps With Third-Party Support Some large enterprises are looking to third-party ERP support providers to reduce their maintenance and support costs by 50 percent or more rather than sticking with their existing ERP vendors. Rebecca Wettemann of Nucleus Research explains the circu By Todd R. Weiss Aug 02, 2011 4 mins ERP Systems IT Strategy Enterprise Applications Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe