SAP won't be able to drive enough demand to reach those thresholds without a strong partner program, which will uncover what customers really want from the product, suggested independent analyst Jon Reed. "A lot of the most important industry add-ons are going to come directly from customer feedback and need."

So far SAP has about 50 ByDesign resellers and 40 development partners, according to Horak. The company is proceeding slowly in order to ensure the right mix of companies are involved and all the add-ons that get developed are supportable, he said.

SAP is anticipating a range of development scenarios for ByDesign, from more complex "micro-vertical" applications to alternative user interfaces.

It will depend on the situation whether SAP or a partner hosts the add-on functionality, Horak said. "If they are leveraging our data types, it makes sense for it to reside on our blades."

ByDesign will also serve as the underlying platform for on-demand applications aimed at large enterprises, although efforts in that area aren't set to ramp up until later this year.