NEW YORK, USA: SAP AG, the biggest maker of business management programs, plans to expand its fledgling portfolio of Web-based software, looking to boost its presence in an area dominated by Salesforce.com Inc.

The German company will unveil in May its product roadmap for software as a service (SaaS), one of the fastest-growing areas in the tech sector, said Jim Hagemann Snabe, a member of SAP's executive board.

"We would like to offer a full suite of options," he said in an interview.

SAP already offers an SaaS product that competes with Salesforce's flagship software for handling customer relationship management. That product has yet to take off in a market where Salesforce's lead is also being challenged by Oracle Corp and Microsoft Corp.

As SAP expands its presence in the SaaS marketplace, it will take a different approach from Salesforce, which hosts all of its software and only allows customers to access the programs over the Web.

SAP plans to offer hybrid packages that clients can access over the Internet or choose to install in their own data centers, Snabe said.

"I am not trying to copy Salesforce. That would make no sense for our customers," he said.

One advantage of Web-based software is that companies can implement it quickly since they do not need to install it in their own data centers.

SAP's hybrid approach will allow customers to quickly implement software packages over the Web, then move the programs into their own data centers if they decide to expand deployment, Snabe said.

SAP's broad portfolio of traditional software helps companies manage a wide range of tasks -- from accounting and inventory control to manufacturing, procurement and human resources.

Snabe declined to discuss which types of software will be added to SAP's Web-based lineup, saying the company will disclose more as it firms up its plans. SAP has not yet put much marketing muscle behind the Web-based offering.

Snabe discussed SAP's strategy for Internet-based software while visiting New York to unveil a major upgrade to its line of traditional software that companies run out of their own data centers.