With the SAP Influencer Summit in full swing, guest host John Appleby tracked down Steve Lucas and Adam Binnie of SAP to address the SAP analytics outlook for 2012. Not surprisingly, mobility wound up being a central theme. John asks Steve and Adam to explain why they believe BI 4.0 is now a mature release, and what new functionality customers can expect in 2012.

Show Notes

:30 SAP’s analytics strategy – where are we today?

1:10 BI 4.0 GA – clarifying version numbers versus feature packs

3:00 Is BI 4.0 a mature release?

7:00 Feature Packs – non-disruptive functionality?

8:20 The impact of mobility on SAP’s BI strategy

11:30 What’s the next big thing in analytics that SAP needs to address?

SAP isn’t usually crazy about “R/3 rip and replace” stories, but this one’s a little different. At this year’s SAP Influencer Summit, Jon talked with Dr. Michael Skall, director with Lufthansa Revenue Services, about why his division of Lufthansa is considering replacing SAP R/3 with SAP Business ByDesign.

Skall shares the goals of the ByDesign pilot project and talks about some of the benefits he sees from ByDesign versus on-premise ERP. Three big factors? Less burden on the IT team, easier management of the system by business experts, and ease of extendability to more Lufthansa employees. Skall also explains why he thinks ByDesign represents the application of the future for SAP.

Show Notes

:30 Why ByDesign is under consideration to replace SAP R/3 in Skall’s division

1:45 Lufthansa’s reasons for starting with a ByDesign pilot

2:45 Where the project stands now – assessing processes

3:30 ByD – less impact on the IT team than R/3?

4:35 Using ByD to expand SAP to more users

5:30 What are the project green-light criteria?

6:20 Is ByD SAP’s software of the future?

By the time we tracked him down at the SAP Influencer Summit, SAP Mentor Dick Hirsch had already written the most extensive analysis of SAP and Success Factors from a cloud architecture perspective.  SAP was legally bound to keep their silence on SuccessFactors at the Summit, but we were not.

So on the Thursday morning after the show, we sat down with Dick in JD-OD Park Plaza headquarters for a special JD-OD shoot to talk about his blog and what he learned at the show. The result was a free flowing conversation about possible SAP-SuccessFactors cloud architectures, as well as the technical and cultural challenges that lie ahead.

Show Notes

:45 How will SAP and SuccessFactor’s cloud architectures fit together?

2:10 SAP’s made progress on its PaaS architecture – will SuccessFactors wreak havoc on it?

3:22 How will SuccessFactors fit into SAP culturally and technically?

4:33 SaaS vendors approach partner development differently

6:06 SAP’s struggle to simplify its PaaS messaging

7:18 Why SAP blew up “core versus edge”

8:20 Predicting the post-acquisition outcomes

9:20 Did Dick change his views on this while at the Summit?

11:00 Grading SAP’s marketing around PaaS

12:20 “SAP couldn’t talk about SuccessFactors this week – but we did.”

In this JD-OD special, guest host John Appleby talks mobile with Nick Brown, SVP Mobile Strategy, SAP. Filmed at the SAP Influencer Summit in Boston, John asks Nick about SAP’s mobile progress in 2011 and whether SAP’s mobile strategy is providing value to customers.

The guys also dig into SAP’s new approaches to mobile pricing, including the Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP) runtime license. Nick also responds to John’s questions about expanding the mobile developer ecosystem and how SAP plans to reduce the barriers to entry for developers in 2012.

Show Notes

:15 Nick’s role at SAP

:45 Assessing SAP’s mobile progress in 2011

2:10 Where are SAP customers at with mobile?

3:40 Is it fair to charge existing SAP customers for mobile extensions?

5:25 The new SUP run time pricing model

7:45 Extending mobility to the developer ecosystem

10:55 Will SAP reduce barriers to entry for developers in 2011?

During the SAP Influencer Summit in Boston, Jon sat down with Ian McCulloch, COO of Nukotoys, to get the backstory on the Nukotoys cloud ERP evaluation process and how ByDesign came out on top.  The guys talked about Nukotoys’ startup ambitions, why they focused on cloud ERP solutions, and how ByDesign stacked up against NetSuite and Oracle’s SME offerings in their selection process.

Also covered: lessons learned from the seven week ByDesign implementation process with partner ERP Logic, and what Nukotoys is looking in future ByDesign enhancements.

Show Notes

:29 Nukotoys – “silicon Valley’s toy company”

1:05 “A true greenfield ERP implementation”

1:50 Why Nukotoys only looked at cloud ERP solutions

3:50 ByDesign versus NetSuite and Oracle – the Nukotoys evaluation

8:15 Lessons learned from the seven week ByD implementation

10:00 How can SAP take ByDesign to the next level?

Halfway through SAP Summit Day Two (“cloud day”), the usual suspects (Vijay, John, Jon and Den) gathered for a gut check on the ongoing conversations they’ve been pressing on developer engagement.  The guys lay out the issues SAP must tackle to move from “jam culture” to “app culture”, debating SAP’s coolness factor and ability to pull in outside developers.

Before they close, the four talk SuccessFactors and why it doesn’t solve these developer issues. There is also some discussion on cloud day, but a more complete discussion of day two is coming in a wrap video with Dick Hirsch (to be posted soon).

Show Notes

:40 What progress has made with developers?

1:55 Is 2012 the year of the developer for SAP, or is it 2013?

3:20 Breaking down the SAP developer issues

5:00 Is developing for SAP cool or uncool?

6:55 There’s a big difference between “jam culture” and “apps store culture”

8:30 Will large organizations buy from small development shops?

10:15 Developers are willing to share the risk – but they need access

10:50 Are SAP executives listening?

12:05 Don’t assume that SuccessFactors solves the problem

13:30 SAP needs middleware

After day one of the influencer summit, the usual suspects (Jon, Den, John and Vijay) gathered to make sense of day one and to talk about what would (and wouldn’t) say on day two, “cloud day.” The guys review the Snabe keynote and the points of controversy (such as SAP proclaiming the goal of being the #2 database vendor by 2015). They read between the lines on some cloud news, such as the future of Career OnDemand and ByDesign, and Dennis weighs in on the impact of the newly-announced Tibco partnership.

Show Notes

:40 Day one takeways

2:40 Is “the new SAP” gaining momentum?

3:15 The latest on Career OnDemand, ByDesign, and Business One

5:00 Can HANA revitalize the Business Suite?

6:18 Will a “bottom up” SME focus impact SAP’s approach to smaller development shops?

8:00  Dennis’ take on the Tibco partnership

9:45 “cloud day” predictions