This morning SAP's Sapphire user conference kicked off in Orlando, traditionally with the CEO keynote.
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Always tough to pick the Top 3 takeaways - but here you go:
Empathy is the new Leitmotiv - 2 years ago Bill McDermott used 'simple' as key messaging umbrella for SAP, today he switched it over to customer empathy. He had the heads / leaders of Ariba, Concur, Hybris and SuccessFactors including former CTO Clark on stage - all stating how much SAP has done already in regards of empathy.
Digital Boardroom - In a follow up to last year, we got walked through the latest version of the SAP Digital Boardroom, again with the statement that it was used 'just a few days ago'. Always good to see vendors drinking their own champagne, but in my view the Boardroom is too much about visualization and too little about insights and what ifs that are triggered by software, not the humans.
SAP & Microsoft - In a major partnership commitment, Microsoft CEO Nadella was on stage, sharing his view in a panel with McDermott on how business best practices are changing in the digital age. Good to hear their views - would also be good to have learned more on the new partnership announced today (see here), which basically means that SAP has found its first leading IaaS outlet to run both HANA and S4/HANA. Will be interesting to see what the benefits for customers are and what the implications are for SAP's own #IaaS ambitions.
Check out below a Storify of my Day #1 keynote tweets.
And more about SAP technology:
Always tough to pick the Top 3 takeaways - but here you go:
Empathy is the new Leitmotiv - 2 years ago Bill McDermott used 'simple' as key messaging umbrella for SAP, today he switched it over to customer empathy. He had the heads / leaders of Ariba, Concur, Hybris and SuccessFactors including former CTO Clark on stage - all stating how much SAP has done already in regards of empathy.
Digital Boardroom - In a follow up to last year, we got walked through the latest version of the SAP Digital Boardroom, again with the statement that it was used 'just a few days ago'. Always good to see vendors drinking their own champagne, but in my view the Boardroom is too much about visualization and too little about insights and what ifs that are triggered by software, not the humans.
SAP & Microsoft - In a major partnership commitment, Microsoft CEO Nadella was on stage, sharing his view in a panel with McDermott on how business best practices are changing in the digital age. Good to hear their views - would also be good to have learned more on the new partnership announced today (see here), which basically means that SAP has found its first leading IaaS outlet to run both HANA and S4/HANA. Will be interesting to see what the benefits for customers are and what the implications are for SAP's own #IaaS ambitions.
MyPOV
A good start for Sapphire, a good keynote with McDermott, that instead of slides used a conversational format and not less than three panels to get multiple point of views on stage. The Microsoft partnership has the biggest impact - if executed. It is good news for customers, and setup well - as SAP needs to defined and build out its own IaaS capacity and that requires a lot of Capex, on the other side Microsoft is looking for load to keep expanding Azure. The biggest load with conformity that is out there is the load generated by SAP, so a good objective. But a lot of execution needs to happen to make the customer succeed, and that's what matters the most.Check out below a Storify of my Day #1 keynote tweets.
More on SAP:
- Event Preview - SAP Sapphire 2016 - What to expect and look for - read here
- News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad - read here
- Progress Report - SAP SuccessFactors makes good progress - now needs appeal beyond SAP - read here
- News Analysis - SAP HANA Vora now available... - A key milestone for SAP - read here
- Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - Make Procurement Cool Again - read here
- News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors innovates in Performance Management with continuous feedback powered by 1 to 1s - read here
- Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
- News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
- First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
- News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
- News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
- Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
- First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
- News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
- First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
- In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
- First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
- Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
- First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
- First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
- SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
- Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
- News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
- Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
- Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
- First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
- Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
- What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
- News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
- Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
- SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
- Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
- SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
- Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
- SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
- Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
- SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
- Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
- Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
- The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
- A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
- What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
- Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
- Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
- Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
- Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here
- Event Prieview - SAP TechEd 2015 - read here
- News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
- HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
- News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
- News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
- Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
- Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
- News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
- SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
- My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
- SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
- Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
- SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
- HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here.