But it seemed to quickly backtrack by saying partners will continue to develop features and it will be kept alive in certain parts of the market. The problem, one industry participant said, is SAP wants to bring its S/4 downstream. That stems from the fact, he continued, SAP makes more money with Tier 1 S/4 than with its mid-market ByD or BusinessOne products even though those two are good “new name generators” in bringing in customers. His analysis is the same as mine, that years ago SAP thought its Tier One market would stagnate so it launched the cloud-based ByD, which has had on-again, off-again visibility, to move more heavily into the mid-market. But when S/4 Hana was a hit, the vendor’s interest in ByD withered because the software vendor could make more money on the higher-end products. The observer said the real test will be in January if the SAP sales team will still be compensated for ByD sales.