Enterprise resource planning company SAP says reports that it and Commerce One are parting ways have mistakenly created the impression that it is abandoning online marketplaces.
Reuters reported late last week that SAP and Commerce One will no longer sell each others` products as there were conflicts between the companies` sales teams as Commerce One approached existing SAP customers.
Simon Carpenter, local GM of mySAP.com components, confirms that the cross-selling agreement is to be abandoned, but says this will not have much impact on products.
"Some of the cooperation will continue, specifically around MarketSet," he says. "Where we are parting ways is on what we call the 'onramping` side of things, the Enterprise Buyer product."
MarketSet is an e-marketplace product jointly developed by the companies. Development is set to continue and both companies will continue to sell it.
Enterprise Buyer, the "onramp" product, was developed in two versions, a professional edition maintained by SAP and a desktop version built by Commerce One. The products shared the same interface and were sold by both companies.
But SAP says its version has developed beyond a simple procurement system, which is the reason it is being subsumed in the mySAP.com product set as part of a supplier relationship manager or SRM.
That SAP product will not be available to Commerce One, but the company will retain the rights to sell the previous Enterprise Buyer professional edition as part of MarketSet.
SAP describes the change as minor and says its purpose is to "enable the companies to more easily address a wide market by leveraging the unique strengths of each product offering", which presumably means SAP wants to differentiate itself from Commerce One.
Commerce One SA is independently owned from Commerce One in the US. While the local operation has the franchise to run a marketplace and sell Commerce One products, Carpenter says it had not been selling SAP software.
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