April 23, 2012 // By: Heather McIlvaine

Google Apps for SMEs
In December 2011, a midsize company in France was evaluating a number of ERP applications. Among them was SAP Business ByDesign. Then, seemingly overnight, the company went from weighing several offerings to purchasing SAP’s solution without a backward glance. What convinced them to go with SAP so suddenly? SAP and Google had just announced their plans to integrate Google Apps with SAP Business ByDesign.
Google Apps is a suite of web-based applications that support individual and team productivity, including email (Gmail), shared documents (Google Docs), planning (Google Calendar), team communication (Google Groups), and more. Over four million companies run Google Apps.
The French company later told their SAP reseller that they had always intended to use Google Apps. So when they found out that SAP was planning to integrate Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar directly into its on-demand solution, the decision was easy. SAP Business ByDesign is the only end-to-end ERP solution for SMEs that allows users to link documents and interchange data with Google Apps.
“This customer bought the ByDesign license a week after we announced our On-Demand relationship with Google,” remembers Brian McPhail, senior director, On-Demand Ecosystem, Business Development. “We felt this was a really clear indication of customers’ and potential customers’ excitement about our relationship with Google.”