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.
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