SAPPHIRE to SAPPHIRE Under the Dynamic Duo (Part Two)
By Sam Sliman, President, Optimal Solutions Integration
This year’s SAPPHIRE marks the first, full SAPPHIRE-to-SAPPHIRE year for SAP co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe. In part one of this article, we looked at SAP’s progress over the past year in terms of new products and new releases for existing products. The dynamic duo earned credibility on this score, launching five new SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions, ten new SAP BusinessObjects analytic applications, and SAP HANA featuring in-memory technology. In addition, SAP rolled out major new releases for SAP NetWeaver, SAP BusinessObjects, SAP Business ByDesign, SAP Sourcing OnDemand, SAP Transportation Management, SAP GRC, SAP PLM and SAP EIM, among others. In part two of this article, we evaluate McDermott and Snabe’s progress with delivering SAP on-demand and on-device – key components of the duo’s strategy for achieving their stated goal of reaching one billion SAP users by 2015.
SAP on-demand unpacked
SAP’s on-demand product Business ByDesign (BBD) survived being over-hyped when launched in 2007; recovered from a few delays during development; and with the sudden departure last month of SAP’s key SaaS exec John Wookey, will no doubt receive heightened scrutiny at SAPPHIRE.
Despite these challenges, SAP has grown the number of BBD customers from around 100 in mid-2010 to 250 by the end of 2010, and predicts it will have 1,000 BBD customers by the end of 2011.
SAP has infused BBD with its breakthrough in-memory technology and related analytics capability; has extended BBD support for numerous mobile platforms and mobile devices; has included in its latest release (2.6) a software development kit that allows partners to create extensions, customizations and add-ons; and has anointed BBD as the linchpin to its overall cloud strategy -- a strategy that is bringing to market a new family of on-demand, line-of-business applications that includes SAP Sourcing OnDemand, SAP Carbon Impact OnDemand, and SAP Sales OnDemand.
While we can expect SAP to make additional BBD & on-demand-related announcements at SAPPHIRE, we can also expect SAP’s cloud strategy to be guided equally by innovation and prudence. As the recent crash of Amazon’s cloud services demonstrates, on-demand computing, for all its promise, may have a way to go before Fortune 500 companies migrate their core, SAP-based accounting and finance operations to the cloud.
According to Gartner, the global market for cloud-related services may hit $148.8 billion in 2014, up from $68.3 billion in 2010. SAP certainly is not going to miss out on this opportunity. But equally certain, SAP’s cloud offerings will be thoroughly tested before widespread deployment. As stated recently by SAP SVP Sanjay Poonen, “[…] you can be sure that as Business ByDesign scales from 1,000 customers to 100,000 customers, we’ll be ready for that.”
SAP mobility unleashed
SAP’s acquisition of Sybase and the ‘on-device’ component of its product strategy garnered many headlines and much attention during SAPPHIRE 2010, and SAP customers can expect more SAP mobility buzz at SAPPHIRE 2011.
To help unwire the enterprise and drive development of SAP mobile apps, SAP and Sybase have forged a new Mobile Business Unit committed to delivering innovation more rapidly across the SAP and Sybase portfolios. SAP customers can expect the fruit of this collaboration to be showcased at SAPPHIRE.
In addition, the SAP partner ecosystem, led by enterprise mobility innovators such as Vivido Labs and Sky Technologies, among others, has dramatically accelerated the pace of SAP mobile application development and customer adoption. SAP mobility ecosystem partners will no doubt be at SAPPHIRE en masse to advertise their solutions.
For an accurate perspective on the promise of SAP enterprise mobility, it is important not to lose sight of SAP’s breakthrough in-memory computing technology and SAP’s Business Intelligence (BI) leadership, a la BusinessObjects.
SAP’s goal of reaching one billion end users by 2015 hinges heavily on extending the scope and reach of its BI and analytics solutions. The confluence of mobility and in-memory technology marks a transformation in how BI is consumed within the enterprise, in essence, providing BI and analytics with a long tail of enterprise end-users by extending BI and analytics to literally any employee with a smartphone. This blows open the range of possible BI applications, and greatly increases the value BI delivers.
According to SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott, mobility is a game changer, and SAP and the SAP partner ecosystem have only scratched the surface of what is possible on the mobile front.
Said McDermott in a recent BBC News article, "The mobile business will change everything. There are lots of brilliant applications inside [enterprise software] suites that want to come out and be liberated on the device.”
For more on SAP enterprise mobility, download Optimal SAP Advisor Report: Why SAP Mobility Now?
Be sure to visit with Optimal at SAPPHIRE -- drop by booth 2113 or schedule a meeting now.
