SAP has just signed off on its 1000th Australian customer spruiking it as proof of the vendor's success in the small to medium (SME) enterprise category.

The customer, Eurolinx, is a distributor of Ilve cooking appliances and has 60 staff based in Sydney with sales offices across Australia.

Eurolinx selected SAP partner, Key Business Solutions, to lead the implementation of the SAP Business One solution.

The company's managing director, Leia Colbert, said there wasn't many options for SME companies just over three years ago.

However, in recent years Colbert said there has been a lot of vendors launching SME specific software packages.

"Our previous solution was struggling to cope with an expanding product range and business growth. We are looking to the SAP solution to streamline business processes and improve inventory control around the country," Colbert explained.

"We evaluated four options before selecting SAP which came out on top in terms of ease of use and inventory management."

SAP Australia managing director and CEO, Alan Hyde, said four new customers a week choose SAP.

"One thousand SME customers is a significant milestone for SAP and our partner community in Australia," Hyde said.

"We started on this journey in late 2003 with just a handful of SME customers. To reach 1000 customers in four years means around four new SMEs a week are choosing SAP to run their business.

"Every new customer has a different story, but there are common themes. SMEs want fast deployment at an attractive price point."

SAP formally launched its SME strategy in ANZ in late 2003 with the announcement of the SAP Business One software solution for small businesses along with the PartnerEdge channel partner program.

Business One is suitable for companies with up to around $50 million in annual revenue, depending on the complexity of the business processes.

The All-in-One suite is for companies with more complex business processes, capturing the market for companies from less than $100 million in revenue to less than $1 billion at the upper end of the midmarket.

Hyde said in coming month the company's on-demand ERP solution will become available in the Australian market. "We are really only at the start of our SME transformation journey," he said.

SAP SME customers in Australia include Acromet, Aquanita Racing, Carinda, General Pants, Huon Aquaculture, IPS Logistics, Playcorp, Taylors Wine, Troy Laboratories and Viscount Rotational Mouldings.

Last month HP rolled out services to help users modernize and manage their ERP systems.

The services are currently available in Africa, Europe and the US but an announcement for the Asia Pacific is expected in the new year.