On the last day of SAPPHIRE NOW (Wednesday the 18th), Dennis Howlett sat down with John Appleby and Vijay Vijayasankar to hash out the SAP mobility takeaways and do a quick show wrap.
During the 13 minute video, the guys talk about the need for SAP to roll out an Apple-style apps store model, including – in their view – the need to give away the platform. SAP’s progress on mobility is assessed and that elusive question, “Is SAP Listening?” gets a post-SAPPHIRE airing.
Show Notes:
:00 Dennis loves mobility, how’s about John?
:25 Why John is feeling positive (finally) about SAP mobility
1:20 How many apps are SAP committed to?
2:00 Pitching alternative pricing model to Bill McDermott
3:00 Should SAP give the platform away?
4:10 SAP is hashing out mobile pricing models
4:35 Vijay’s take on the SAP mobile market
5:40 The challenge of mobile apps customization.
7:15 Address customization problems with template apps
8:00 People expect an apps store experience
9:10 Does SAP listen?
10:10 “Build the apps and they will come”
10:50 Support for partner apps – a challenge
12:05 More or less confident than last year?
Dennis/John/Vijay
Good observations and I sort of agree with your point on selling the apps and giving the platform for free but what I am struggling to understand is will an apple store like model work well for enterprise apps? Mobility means different things to different customers and when you put in the usability factor, every customer is unique. Let me try to explain my point with an example. A pre-packaged solution from SAP is an attractive option for back end functions but when it comes to external facing applications like portals, almost always, customers go for a highly customized solution that suit their needs. The same requirements shall apply to mobility as well. I think most customers would want to buy the platform from SAP, use it to deploy their own apps. Of course, they would want some out of the box apps as a starting point, but I still think customers will still employ small/medium shops for building their apps and maintaining through SUP. The big SIs, I agree with your point, they will have a bigger play in making sure all the moving pieces are integrated well including providing development frameworks, templates, security and controls etc.
Now, the Business by Design customers, will definitely benefit from an app store model. And at some point in the future, when the SAP customer base adopts more and more SAAS based offerings from SAP, they may be ready for an app store model
My 2 cents.. Great show and nice work.
Cheers
KK
I see the argument KK but this is about disruptive innovation. Hasso has now said to me twice that this constant desire for customization doesn’t make sense. It used to do so 10-15 years ago but in truth how many customers can honestly say that their accounting engine is so unique it delivers business advantage? And what about the ability to both create and improve applications? None of that is possible today. An AppStore style of operation solves both those problems AND democratizes development AND allows developers to get into the volume sales game. What’s not to like? Now – will everyone do that? Of course not. SAP’s top 1% will paddle their own canoe. But look at the response to Vishal’s piece here: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/24782 – the money just ain’t there. This provides another way to overcome the problem while delivering value. Everyone wins.
Dennis
Disruptive innovation is the key word here. I agree, democratizing development is definitely going to help. Many of the innovations we see today are by a small group of people, mostly teams of one to five members. I am just skeptical about CFOs and CIOs taking that first leap in buying in to this whole idea of disruptive innovation. Time will only tell, but yes, it is high time we come out of the “I’m special” syndrome..
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
KK