German business software maker SAP is winding down a web-based software product for small to mid-sized businesses, a German magazine reported.<\/p>\n
Business weekly Wirtschaftswoche said SAP would stop the development of a software dubbed Business By Design, although existing customers will be able to continue to use it.<\/p>\n
An SAP spokesman said on Saturday that development capacity for Business By Design was being reduced, but that the product was not being shut down.<\/p>\n
SAP, one of the world’s biggest makers of business management software, originally projected that Business by Design – which was launched in 2010 – would reach 10,000 customers and generate $1 billion of revenue.<\/p>\n
The magazine reported, however, that the product, which cost roughly 3 billion euros to develop, currently has only 785 customers and is expected to generate no more than 23 million euros in sales this year.<\/p>\n
By comparison, in the second quarter, SAP’s software and software-related service revenue stood at 3.35 billion euros.<\/p>\n
SAP started working on Business by Design in 2003 to diversify sales beyond its traditional market of large corporations and government agencies, trying to compete with software sold by NetSuite, a company founded more than a decade ago by Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison.<\/p>\n
The Wirtschaftswoche report said that ever since the SAP product’s launch, customers had complained about technical issues and the slow speed of the software.<\/p>\n
SAP declined to provide any specific comment on investment expenditures, sales figures or customer numbers of Business by Design.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach; writing by Arno Schuetze. Editing by Jane Merriman)<\/p>\n
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