Moving forward [McDermott] sees the two approaches [self-hosted software and software as a service] coexisting in a way that's not necessarily in conflict. "I think both models are viable" McDermott says. "There are mission-critical, end-to-end business processes that large companies run to keep their company going. They have large transaction rates and they require visibility on an end-to-end basis and very tight integration. Those processes will continue to be run on-premise. There will also be loosely coupled applications that don't need to be tightly coupled to the core process in the enterprise. Those will be easily provisioned in an on-demand model."
He continues: "Ultimately, the best of both worlds is to have full integration in the enterprise where you have to have it for risk management, compliance, and execution, and still be able to integrate the on-demand model into the enterprise. That's the hybrid model that SAP sees. That's the model we think gives the customer the most value."
With regard to business intelligence in particular, it's already commonplace for companies to rely on both internal data sources (e.g. SAP, Oracle) and external data sources (e.g. Salesforce.com, NetSuite). Business Intelligence OnDemand is designed to capitalize on that heterogeneity - by using a data integration hub to process incoming data from both on-premise and off-premise sources - giving organizations a unified view of information that's critical to see together, even if it comes from multiple sources.
