The Churchill Club debate between SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner and Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff late last week was like watching the proverbial train wreck: despite the gory scene unfolding before you, you can't look away. In this case, I couldn't stop listening to the Webcast. The moderator could actually be heard saying "down boy" to either Plattner, Benioff - to little effect - as they argued back and forth like two kids on a playground.

The gist of the debate was to be the future of SAAS and PAAS (platform as a service, for the uninitiated), the impact those models are having on traditional licensed software, vendors and IT departments. I will say this: While the debate might not have done much to further humanity's understanding of the "paradigm shift" that is SAAS, it was a fascinating study in passive aggressive behavior between two industry giants - one who has been on the forefront of the world's largest business applications company for 37 years, the other very much up and coming, and both wary of the other.

At bottom the debate did more to fan the flames around the raging speculation of whether Salesforce is courting Oracle as an acquirer, Oracle is pursuing Salesforce as a love match or - a new twist - SAP is considering Salesforce.com. On the cheap, that is. Because as Plattner warned Benioff, Salesforce.com's shining star could wane.

"I'll give you advice, because you are younger," said Plattner. "Don't overestimate your platform. We have sunk so many platforms, taking with them other computer companies [that have partnered with them]."

As a bit of a salvo Plattner added: "When you talk to Oracle about this, there will be a massive joint venture between you and Oracle that makes [your platform] so massive that 1.2 million developers can [actually] sit on it."

Plattner was referring to the number of developers coding away on SAP's ERP software.

"But don't overestimate," warned Plattner. "Your ship can sink."

The moderator jumped in and asked Benioff, "Is that right? Are you doing a big deal with Oracle?" to which Benioff replied, "I'm just learning about it for the first time."

Hasso's retort: "If you're available, maybe we should talk."

Later during the Q&A session someone asked if SAP is seriously considering acquiring Salesforce.

"It always makes sense to look into something," said Plattner. "If the Apex platform is really as good as he [Benioff] thinks it is, we should look even more."

"You should build one of your apps - pick one that is appropriate - try it out for a few years," said Benioff. "And if you like it, let us know what you think."

"You are still too good a friend with Larry, and I don't go into bidding wars," replied Hasso. "If
[SAP] thinks differently, they will inform the supervisory board and I will have to vote."

The two also chided each others' approach to building software, though Benioff couched his remarks with a nod to reverence due an elder statesman.

"I have tremendous respect for SAP. Not only is it the largest, most successful [software company] but Hasso has tenured that. When he rolls out a SAAS platform what is in my head? I want to figure out how I can get SAP to build on my platform. And I am not kidding. I am going around to every company and showing them how [they can build on demand]. SAP has had a lot of difficulties building on demand. They don't have any customers yet. We have 41,000. I look at that and say, how do I help them make that happen? They need to write their apps on our platform. There's no way they are going to figure it out.

Benioff was of course referring to SAP's massive build out of its Business ByDemand on-demand ERP suite that's in limited roll out phase now and will be generally available perhaps in the next 12 to 18 months, according to Plattner.

"The problem with the approach to [Business ByDesign] is 2,100 developers - all that and no customer success," said Benioff. "When [SAP] goes to DuPont and says, 'here's CRM on demand, try this.' And we go to DuPont [and we win]...

"Why did you win DuPont?" responded Plattner. "Because we had a shitty CRM system. Why did you lose a big [deal]? Because it's better now. So you had a good life, now we have come back."

Salesforce.com, which expects to reach a billion dollars in sales this fiscal year, has had a very good life. And it is facing increasing competition from not only SAP but stalwarts like Microsoft as they roll out their respective on-demand platforms (Oracle says it has an on-demand platform, too, but that seems more marketing than reality at this point). It will be interesting to see who stands the test of time.