Hello. This is Jeff Kelly, associate editor at SearchSMB.com. I’ll be contributing to SMBlogger on a regular basis. 

After less than successful efforts in the past, SAP has decided to have another go at the SMB market. Timothy Prickett Morgan over at IT Jungle reports that the German uber-software vendor has committed up to $500 million “to market an SOA-enabled, easy to use set of application software that would be more economically and technically appealing to SMB customers.” 

The main thrust of SAP’s SMB strategy revolves around the company’s soon-to-be released A1S application suite, Prickett reports. But it remains to be seen if SAP will finally be successful in tapping the midmarket. Jim Schaper, CEO of would-be SAP competitor Infor, didn’t seem too frightened, as he made clear to Prickett: 

“One has to wonder if SAP truly understands the mid-market or whether this strategy is solely an effort to detract attention from the slowing growth of their Fortune 500 base … Medium-sized customers do not want all-in-one products that need massive customization efforts to address their line of business. That approach is a relic of the past, when ERP implementations were akin to corporate open heart surgery. Infor has built a strong growing company on delivering solutions with industry experience already built in. The bottom line is that customers want more functionality, less complexity, and the lowest total cost of ownership. That is not the plan we see from SAP.” 

Sounds like fightin’ words to me. Guess we’ll have to wait to see how this one plays out.