ORACLE

Oracle provides a broad enterprise application product portfolio gained from years of acqusitions of PeopleSoft, Siebel, BEA, Retek and many other companies. It also has one of the leading databases and middleware product offerings. Many would say Oracle has a the best-of-breed applications in many key areas PeopleSoft for HR, Siebel for CRM and eBusiness for Financials.

SAP
SAP too has acquired companies through the years but more on the technology than application side. Thus the SAP product line is well integrated and very stable. SAP has a very strong following in the manufacturing arena and strong functionality for support of manufacturing operations. The SAP product is more monolithic than Oracle, but works very well and modules are well integrated.

Pricing
Nucleus Research did a cost study and concluded that Oracle's average three-year total cost of ownership (TCO) is 48% lower than SAP's. This was from surveys with over 20 Oracle and 20 SAP customers. Although the software license costs were comparable, the consulting costs and resource costs for SAP were much higher.

Time to Implement
The same Nucleus survey noted that an average of 81 man months were needed to deploy Oracle versus 372 for SAP. These results may have been skewed somewhat by the makeup of the deals compared. The statistics show there are some big outliers on the SAP side of the equation. It not clear how much of these outliers are because the project size was greater with SAP. Or is SAP more difficult or riskier to implement?

 A recent benchmark study reveals some interesting insights as to how companies have fared with both SAP and Oracle. The study, which covers over 1,300 implementations across the globe, found that on average, Oracle is implemented in less time and at a lower cost than SAP. Even when adjusted for variances in company size and scope, Oracle is implemented at a lower cost and in less time.

BOTTOM LINE
SAP is generally implemented at bigger companies than Oracle. SAP personnel costs are higher and consulting rates are higher than Oracle. SAP is expensive to customize. SAP is like the Ferrari of the ERP world, loved by the very high end of the market but expensive to buy, customize and maintain. Not many companies can afford it. But if you need the sports car they are tough to beat. Oracle on the other hand is like the Mercedes Benz of the ERP world, with its broad product line and strong underlying technology. Certainly not cheap to buy or maintain, but available to a larger audience and relatively less expensive than SAP.