
Podcast – Debating the Value of SAP HANA
SAPPHIRE Now Madrid marked a milestone in the evolution of SAP HANA, with the first productive customer of BW on HANA (Red Bull) featured in the keynote of board member Vishal Sikka. However, behind the scenes, there was a more nuanced debate about the merits of BW on HANA. For my latest JonERP podcast, I […]

SAP Teched Las Vegas and Beyond – SAP at the Crossroads
For those outside SAP, TechEd has always been a bit impenetrable. Being first and foremost a community event, SAP TechEd is the highlight of the SAP conference circuit for those whose idea of a racy night in Vegas is watching fellow coders face off for glory at Demo Jam, even as the contest itself is […]

Analyzing The Real News Stories of Sapphire Now 2011, Part One: The Impact Of HANA
It’s becoming a tradition: a reporter pulls me aside at the end of an SAP show and asks, “There wasn’t really much news, was there?” No, and yes. BI 4.0 excepted, the most compelling SAP software releases of 2011 are looking like fall/winter timeframes. But there was plenty of “real news” to be found at […]

SAP Sales OnDemand – Addressing the Lingering Questions
On November 8, 2008, John Wookey left Oracle to lead SAP’s large enterprise “Line of Business” (LOB) team. Since Wookey joined SAP, we’ve seen internal clarifications of SAP’s LOB on-demand strategy, but not much new product. That changed on February 24, 2011, when SAP hosted a group of “influencers” at the Boston Museum of Science […]

The SAP BI 4.0 Launch in Review – More than Happy Talk?
For me, last week was about trains, Marriotts, and rapid-fire SAP events. One biggie was the BI 4.0 launch in New York City. The launch was embedded into the Run Better SAP event that took place in New York City on February 23. I attended SAP’s blogger track for the event, which spanned two days […]