'Europe's most influential technology company is helping us make on-demand the global standard,' wrote Marc Benioff (pictured) in a memo yesterday to all his employees at SalesForce.com. He was referring to SAP, the German software giant, which is finally expected to announce an on-demand CRM product this week, after what Benioff called 'months of warming up.'

"For starters, they had better hope that their on-demand offering will win more fans than their on-premise solution has."

"While SAP claims leadership in CRM, experience suggests a different story.  I have often wondered, 'If SAP's CRM software is any good, then why doesn't SAP use it to manage their own customer relationships?'  I have interviewed hundreds of salespeople and executives from SAP from around the world, and each has told me the only CRM system at SAP is an executive system based on Microsoft Excel.  I'm not surprised since I have never met a salesperson anywhere in the world who uses SAP CRM.  Indeed, Gartner noted at a recent conference that only 19 percent of SAP CRM customers actually use it.  If fewer than a fifth of our customers used our service, we'd consider that a failure.  At SAP, they call it a business plan.  Even SAP's largest customers such as Dupont, DeutschePost, AirProducts, Autodesk, EFI, DeutscheBank, Analog Devices, and so many others use Salesforce for CRM."

"Let's state it simply: SAP is an innovation-free company.  When reporters describe the great innovators of this industry, it's easy to identify the significant contributions of many of the leaders. For Oracle, it's the database;  for Apple, the Mac, iPod, and iTunes; for Microsoft, the PC operating system; for Intel, the microprocessor. But for SAP?  I struggle to think of a single innovation that SAP has contributed.  Their code is as bulky and inefficient as it is expensive and unloved by its users."

Benioff ended his memo with a hint that SAP might so founder that it would become Oracle's next acquisition prey:

"Siebel tried to sell an admittedly inferior on-demand product as an on-ramp to its on-premise system.  It appears that on-ramps make road pizza out of your business model. That strategy sent an entire company slouching towards Redwood Shores this week.  Will SAP make the same mistake?"