Thanks to the power of the internet, one could sit in the first row today following the keynotes of both SAP and Netsuite for their respective user conferences, Sapphire and SuiteWorld. With a combined 26000 attendees, these are events that dwarf minor cities, with the bulk (20k) not surprisingly going to SAP.
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The other focus was around SAP's challenged mobile offering. SAP is partnering with Mocana and delivering a mobile device cloud for Afaria, the price seems right with one US$ per device and month. It's ironic, since one of the competitive stabs of McDermott was, that SAP kept investing in the acquired solutions, well these two partnerships show, that maybe SAP kept investment in Afaria (doubt it though) but certainly the development team missed the boat in regards of in app embedded security, as well as providing a cloud provisioned service. Ironically SAP is deploying the new cloud based MDM solution not on Hana Enterprise Cloud - but on Amazon's AWS. Maybe MDM data is too expensive to hold in memory? All a question of elasticity.
The press releases were rounded up with the most prominent of all verticals at this Sapphire so far - Sports & Entertainment - got a lot of airtime - and SAP event admits that luminaries of the sports world attended. Must be cool to have Justin Gimelstob show up in your Analytics presentation. But does this make SAP products better? My tweet that this is really a technology, not an applications pitch made the Top5 tweets of ASUG (many thanks!) - and that's what it's about. At least SAP is open and honest about it in the press release.
NetSuite then made the day all about manufacturing. The new found love in heavy manufacturing functionality seems to be the next growth path NetSuite wants to take. Starting at the cradle of all manufacturing. design, with a partnership with Autodesk and re-telling the PLM story makes sense. But most of the functionality is a me-too for established vendors - though they have not delivered that all in the cloud yet.
NetSuite also announced a partnership to help the company on the procurement side, with CapGemini - using both services, the CG IBX procurement platform and supplier network. Not sure how much of a BPO play NetSuite has, but it was part of the announced services mix. A good move to address global services needs and complementing procurement automation. Also on the partner side NetSuite made a virtue of a necessity: A cloud vendor needs to ensure compatibility of partner offerings running on its cloud infrastructure - so why not certify them - so NetSuite announced the 'built for NetSuite' partner program.
Nelson did a great job leading through the keynote - and while he is not as smooth as the Xerox trained McDermott, he gets the job done, every year a little better.
It was sad to see Calderoni then trying to keep the energy level up... which was tough, but format and delivery was sub par. Disney as a customer provided an infomercial about Disney. Instead of showing how all SAP customers can become Ariba customers and how they can benefit - precious keynote time was wasted. And no live software, a Q&A with the CMO of Ariba - where are the development execs of Ariba?
I am sure on sheer mass SAP won this hands down - but in terms of relative audience, number of customers and marketing budget - the 1st day round goes to NetSuite on the marketing side.
Whats SAP news
SAP had to cram back to the event filled last week, namely the Hana Enterprise Cloud launch, so the press releases around the Hana Cloud Platform was a look back and around for anything cloud. And SAP claims now to have over 29 million users in the cloud... not sure how they came up with that number. The biggest lasting change from this press releases is the extensive renaming of products, adding more of the cloud tag to the product names... The re-organization around the 4 categories of People, Money, Customer and Supplier makes sense - but what do I make out of this, when I am a manufacturing company? (See Netsuite below - co-incidence?)The other focus was around SAP's challenged mobile offering. SAP is partnering with Mocana and delivering a mobile device cloud for Afaria, the price seems right with one US$ per device and month. It's ironic, since one of the competitive stabs of McDermott was, that SAP kept investing in the acquired solutions, well these two partnerships show, that maybe SAP kept investment in Afaria (doubt it though) but certainly the development team missed the boat in regards of in app embedded security, as well as providing a cloud provisioned service. Ironically SAP is deploying the new cloud based MDM solution not on Hana Enterprise Cloud - but on Amazon's AWS. Maybe MDM data is too expensive to hold in memory? All a question of elasticity.
The press releases were rounded up with the most prominent of all verticals at this Sapphire so far - Sports & Entertainment - got a lot of airtime - and SAP event admits that luminaries of the sports world attended. Must be cool to have Justin Gimelstob show up in your Analytics presentation. But does this make SAP products better? My tweet that this is really a technology, not an applications pitch made the Top5 tweets of ASUG (many thanks!) - and that's what it's about. At least SAP is open and honest about it in the press release.
What's NetSuite News
Nicely timed NetSuite got the prize from Gartner as the fastest growing Financial Management software vendor globally. I guess it pays if you start and stick to your roots, remember NetSuite started as ... NetLedger.NetSuite then made the day all about manufacturing. The new found love in heavy manufacturing functionality seems to be the next growth path NetSuite wants to take. Starting at the cradle of all manufacturing. design, with a partnership with Autodesk and re-telling the PLM story makes sense. But most of the functionality is a me-too for established vendors - though they have not delivered that all in the cloud yet.
NetSuite also announced a partnership to help the company on the procurement side, with CapGemini - using both services, the CG IBX procurement platform and supplier network. Not sure how much of a BPO play NetSuite has, but it was part of the announced services mix. A good move to address global services needs and complementing procurement automation. Also on the partner side NetSuite made a virtue of a necessity: A cloud vendor needs to ensure compatibility of partner offerings running on its cloud infrastructure - so why not certify them - so NetSuite announced the 'built for NetSuite' partner program.
The Nelson delivery
Nelson and the NetSuite marketing opted for a classic software keynote - CEO on stage, running the whole keynote, some competitive jabs, some announcements, customers (Williams Sonoma) and partners, a software demo etc. |
| Nelson on stage - thanks @LevineAaron |
The McDermott delivery
If you ever want to see a spotless presentation, look at Bill McDermott's delivery. Even a notch better than last year, he had the ungrateful job to make the most of nothing - no product announcements, so he resorted to something he seems to really like, sports. And the idea to host the main part of the keynote in the CBS sports format, hosted by James Brown, was an excellent and entertaining idea. But it felt lengthy at times and for most in the audience, apart from the entertainment factor - what was the relevance to the average SAP user, buyer, partner in the audience? |
| The CBS SportsDesk - thanks to @TimoElliott |
The Marketing Battle
Well it's only day 1 for both conferences, that last three days - but here NetSuite clearly out did SAP. With SAP announcing only two new mobile offerings, a vertical press release for Sports and Entertainment industries and a deja-vu release for Hana Cloud Platform - clearly SAP has so far been announcing early, with Hana Enterprise Cloud, Lumira, NetWeaver 7.4 GA and SAPUI5. That would have been enough to power whole Sapphires of the past years. I am still mystified of the timing - see my partially humorous Top 10 tweets trying to make sense of it here...I am sure on sheer mass SAP won this hands down - but in terms of relative audience, number of customers and marketing budget - the 1st day round goes to NetSuite on the marketing side.