First Comments on SAP’s New Business Objects Explorer

In the latest First Thing Monday, I named SAP’s new Business Objects Explorer as the star of the recent SAPPHIRE conference. While SAP may not be thinking this way, I see the new tool as a potential platform for third-party applications such as Jonova’s business planning software.

Joe Koszarek, Jonova’s president and CEO, was pleasantly surprised by the mention. I’m not sure if that spurred him to take a look at the product, but he did. He sent me an e-mail on his findings:

“I had a chance to use the BO Explorer (BOE) last night and I like it. Based on the demo I saw, one can upload a spreadsheet and BOE sends back a nice applet for cruising through the data. With its ad-hoc ability and if it has dashboard capability and a web API, I could easily see this as a front end Business Analytics Portal, especially with our ability to do predictive modeling.”

What do you think? Will SAP publish the APIs for Business Objects Explorer?

One CIO’s View of SAPPHIRE

The latest First Thing Monday gave you my perspective on the recently completed SAPPHIRE event hosted by SAP. While at the event, I called a friend of mine who is a CIO and asked if he could provide a customer’s view of the conference. Here is his take:

“Attendance seemed fairly light, but certainly enough to fill the hall for the two keynotes and have enough people on the floor to not seem truly sparse. SAP took something of a gamble in holding SAPPHIRE this year. I think it was a good gamble. Customers responded well, voting with their attendance. As customers, it's in our best interest for SAP to display a strong, vital presence in the marketplace. Their decision to hold Sapphire demonstrated leadership and courage.

Tuesday's keynote was OK; not particularly inspiring. It was disappointing that only half of the SUGEN story was told. They discussed the metrics a bit, albeit without much depth. They should have told the rest of the story with details on the extension of the ramp to 22%. Let's face it, they are still struggling with rationalizing their maintenance increase by 29% (editor’s note: this is the actual increase as maintenance goes from 17% to 22%). They are trying to convince customers that this is good for them. This customer is not sold and many other CIOs I speak with are not either. Their arguments and logic are shallow, and they have not done a good job sharing the so-called benefits at the account level.

Wednesday's with Hasso was a mixed bag. The first half with Hasso's professorial droning was painful. I did not come to the keynote for a class on parallel database architecture. Eventually he got around to the punch line regarding speed and the new BO Explorer. However, he muddied the waters. By the time he was done, I didn't understand how much I was seeing was available with the release of Explorer, versus T-Rex functionality that would only be available in a few years.

The BO Explorer product does seem compelling to me. In fact, I've got an internal initiative being driven by an executive who is very excited about a non-SAP data manipulation product. I'm hoping Explorer might head that off at the pass and allow me to keep with SAP. However, when I asked for pricing information, none was available. That was disappointing. It's obvious that BO Explorer was THE announcement of the show, with it dominating both keynotes as well as SAP top executive energy in other venues. However, there was only fragmented and superficial information and demonstrations to be had out on the floor. This seemed very strange. I would have expected a full court press—keynote and show floor. I was frustrated by the lack of information. I wanted to learn much more but have to wait to work it through my local account team.

I was on the leadership track and was overall very satisfied with the experience and I'm glad I attended.”

If you attended SAPPHIRE as a customer, prospect, or partner, I invite you to add your comments, too.

SAPPHIRE ‘09: Clear, The Moment I Met You I Swear

While not all of my colleagues understood why SAP focused on the “Clear New World” messaging at SAPPHIRE ’09, I did. Of course, I had the advantage of getting a sneak preview from Marty Homlish after SAP’s Business Suite 7 launch last February. Marty is president and CEO, SAP Global Marketing.

To me, clear conjures up transparency, visibility, and insight. This is a perfect metaphor for the Business Objects product line and the soon-to-be-revived SAP Business ByDesign. Both product sets could easily be renamed as the “Clear Suite,” an unsolicited market idea that I offered to several SAP executives.

I spent close to an hour with Marty at SAPPHIRE discussing the marketing plans. He explained that the timing of “Clear New World” was meant to coincide with SAPPHIRE and the ascension of Leo Apotheker from co-CEO to sole CEO. 

SAP plans to launch a major marketing campaign around Clear. Phase one begins in five countries in May/June. Targeted countries include China, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States. You may have noticed the two-page, four-color spread in yesterday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal. The plans are to go global soon after.

While SAP will continue to support the ubiquitous “The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP, albeit in an updated form, the company plans to roll out the clear message in print, online, and in airport ads throughout the world. When I asked Marty about his budget, he declined to be specific, saying only that it’s “a lot.”

Clear will be an important internal message, too. Marty told me that on Friday, June 5, Leo will host an “all-employee meeting where he will apply the clear messaging to the purposes and values of the company.”

Marty also disclosed that SAP was “taking SAPPHIRE to the customer” via telepresence and virtual worlds. He described how sales teams armed with video conferencing equipment were visiting key accounts. They would watch the keynotes together, “tour” the exhibit floor for product demonstrations, and have live chats with key executives and product experts via the video link. Marty described it as providing “the complete SAPPHIRE experience without leaving your office.” His current plans are to repeat the program on a wider scale next year.

The only downside to the virtual SAPPHIRE is that you would have missed the incredible thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. I could have done without the heat and humidity on Monday, though. All clear today.

The Continuing Saga of Oracle-Sun

Yesterday, Marketwatch posted an interesting piece on the ongoing drama in Oracle’s bid to acquire Sun. Based on data from regulatory filings, Oracle was one of the three bidders. IBM was also in the mix, while the identity of the third is believed to be HP, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Dell.

Despite Larry’s proclamation of interest in Sun servers and the SPARC chipset, his initial plan was threefold: make a minority investment, acquire some of Sun’s software assets, and form “certain strategic relationships.” Based on Marketwatch and other news reports, it appears that Oracle’s first thrust occurred once word leaked out about IBM’s intentions.

On another note, this morning Oracle announced plans to buy Virtual Iron, a Lowell-MA provider of virtualization software. Terms were not disclosed. Virtual Iron has 2,000 customers spread across a wide array of industries. 

What do you think? Once the Sun deal closes, what does Oracle do with Sun’s hardware and SPARC? Will the Virtual Iron buy put more pressure on VMware?

China: Counterfeiting Made Easy

There was a fascinating, yet very disturbing, article in The New York Times "In China, Knockoff Cell Phones Are a Hit."  

The third paragraph begins with a quote from a visitor to a market selling counterfeit Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung cell phones: “Five years ago, there were no counterfeit phones. You needed a design house. You needed software guys. You needed hardware design. But now a company with five guys can do it. Within 100 miles of here.You can find all your suppliers.”

According to the Times, there are hundreds of tiny Chinese companies turning out “shanzhai” or knockoffs for as cheap as $20 each. The counterfeiters now control as much as 20% of the Chinese market, and have begun exporting to Europe, India, and the Middle East. 

As for the actual manufacturing, the newspaper quotes a former shanzhai executive as saying, “It’s really common for factories to do a night shift for other companies.  No one will refuse an order if it is over 5,000 mobile phones.”

Will Larry Turn Oracle-Sun Into the New AS/400?

If you’re interested in following the Oracle-Sun saga, there’s an excellent chance that you’ve seen the Reuters interview with Larry Ellison. If not, here’s the link to Jim Finkle’s thought-provoking piece, "Q+A What are Larry Ellison’s plans for Sun Micro."

In the interview, Larry reiterates his intention to stay in the hardware business and also says that he plans to “increase the investment in SPARC.” His rationale: “We think designing our own chips is very important.”

As you might imagine, the Reuters piece generated a ton of internal e-mail. My favorite may have been Jim Shepherd’s comparison of Oracle-Sun with IBM’s AS/400. Here’s Shep’s take:

“What I find interesting is Larry's suggestion that Oracle may build hardware and software that are genuinely complementary. We haven’t really seen anyone do this since IBM revolutionized the market with its AS/400 (remember AS stood for Application System.). Like IBM, Oracle could ship a single integrated product that includes hardware, operating system, database, development tools, communication environment, and business applications. 

The AS/400 was simple, relatively cheap to buy and operate, and absolutely bulletproof. Buyers loved it and IBM shipped more than 800,000 of them—far and away the most successful midrange platform in history. How much of companies’ TCO woes are related to the problems of managing increasingly complex, multivendor stacks of technology?”

What do you think?