SAP News

Thoughts on SAP today: "Several things that I take away from today’s meeting.
1. Hasso is a statesman. He didn’t underplay Shai’s impact. But what he did was to rally the whole company behind the new board. It was fantastic to watch. I’m hesitant to use this analogy sitting in Germany, but there was something distinctly Churchillian about him today. I went into the meeting concerned and came out fired up. The lines ” We have a CEO, we have Henning.” and ”I still know about software” raised the rafters with cheers, whistles and footstomps.
2. Another quote that stuck with me from Hasso went something like “Shai was a big tree in the forest , but like any big tree he cast a big shadow. It is now time for people in that shadow to grow and show what they can do.”
3. Henning and the board have reacted quickly and decisively to restructure the organisation. The new executive board and council model is simpler and more streamlined, and Henning has cleverly used Shai’s departure to clean up some messy organisational structures. Marketing is now consolidated under Marty Homlish, reporting to Leo. All partnering is under Zia. Product development reporting lines are simpler too. The field is streamlined with two main regions, one under Bill McDermott, the other under Ernie Gunst. (Jeff and Josh cover this in their posts, and it is all in the press release)"

Take2: Shai's SAP o-bit: "Conspiracy theories aside – that Shai Agassi will surface at Oracle – it looks like SAP's vice president of products and technology is done with both SAP and enterprise software. As the exec leading SAP’s SOA strategy we can only hope SAP now turns down the gas down on its SOA hype. Leave the SOA rah-rah to Oracle. While media will debate the meaning and timing of Agassi’s exit, customers are sure not to feel much difference. As we noted earlier, SAP’s SOA strategy is larger than one man and will outlive him. Many customers are likely to feel indifferent towards SAP’s loss. The majority of SAP’s 35,000 business applications users and are only just thinking about moving to mySAP ERP 2005 - NetWeaver has barely touched them. And, given the feelings of some towards NetWeaver’s shortcomings, others will feel relieved he’s left. While Agassi was not perfect - like other enterprise apps vendor execs he’s been forced to compromise on ondemand and, with A1S, will further complicate SAP’s hosted/SMB picture - he did bring much needed dynamism and youth to SAP. Agassi’s thinking and actions saw SAP finally speak the language of, and take steps towards building out, ISV and developer ecosystems. It’ll be interesting to see whether Henning Kagermann and Leo Apotheker share the same energy and commitment. "

Rift Over Co-CEO Caused Agassi to Leave SAP: "Agassi and Leo Apotheker, president of SAP's Global Customer Solutions & Operations, were front runners for the top spot at SAP.
And from the look of today's announcements—Apotheker was named deputy CEO, alongside Kagermann—the board was clearly considering a co-leadership role between Agassi and Kagermann. SAP executives stressed that it was this rift that led Agassi to give up his coveted role at SAP—and not the explosive legal claim brought by Oracle last week that alleges theft on a grand scale by TomorrowNow, SAP's subsidiary that provides third-party support for Oracle's applications.

'This has nothing to do whatsoever with Oracle,' said Kagermann. 'The proof is this meeting, which was issued before Oracle launched its broad attack.'
When asked about his thoughts as to whether Agassi would have been named to the top spot should his contract not been renewed, Kagermann responded strongly. 'I will not be pushed by anyone inside our outside of SAP to make comments about public positions,' he said. 'That's it. Period.'
Whatever the reasons behind Agassi's resignation—the reasons not outlined in a press release—SAP is clearly under pressure. Oracle's lawsuit, whether specious or not, is shedding a negative light on the company in what has been a tough year on the financial front."

SAP Stalwart Apotheker In Line To Be Next CEO - Software - Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness: "Plattner talked in glowing terms of Agassi during a conference call late on Wednesday to explain Agassi's decision to leave, and pointedly refused to endorse Apotheker as heir to the CEO position.
'As much as Leo is in an extraordinary and elevated position in SAP, I will not allow myself to be pushed by anybody outside or inside SAP to make public statements about successors,' he said when asked whether Apotheker would be the next CEO.
'Am I disappointed? Yes, I'm disappointed but this is looking backwards. I'm looking forward and I'm extremely excited how smooth this transition at SAP worked,' he said of Agassi's decision to quit.
The urbane Apotheker, who is fluent in five languages and lives in Paris rather than SAP's provincial German headquarters of Walldorf, may have the last laugh, though, and is not averse to a little one-upmanship over his younger erstwhile rival.
At an huge SAP event in Paris last year, Agassi addressed a crowd of SAP customers and experts in English, apologising for his lack of foreign languages. He was followed by a beaming Apotheker, who upstaged him by speaking in fluent French.
Agassi's lack of German reportedly did little for his popularity at SAP headquarters. Sources close to the company say he was also reluctant to share the CEO position with Apotheker."

GigaOM » Set, game match: Agassi: "Shai Agassi, president of SAP’s product and technology group is leaving the company, reports WSJ, to pursue other interests in climate change and alternative energy. Of course, it could be that it is easier to solve world’s problems than fix SAP. (Hat tip, Mr.Z!)"

peripheral vision: Top Ten Reasons Why Oracle is on a Roll:

"#10 Oracle was early in its recognition of the growing maturity of the enterprise software market and the need for substantial consolidation.

#9 Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison has refocused his energies on technology and vision rather than sales.

#8 Oracle’s sales force is highly motivated by a rich compensation structure and the benefit of a substantially enhanced strategic presence in accounts.

#7 Addition of new offerings in major verticals through acquisitions such as Retek, ProfitLogix, i-Flex, Portal Software and others, have opened up vast new markets

#6 “Lifetime” support for all acquired products, reducing customer anxiety and further reinforcing a customer-centric view.

#5 High performance middleware products are virtually free – allowing Oracle to leverage its leading position in relational DBMSs with the rapid increase of breadth and depth of its applications.

#4 Competitor SAP has been slow to react and continues to be focused more on the SMB market than the bigger picture.

#3 Acquisitions of PeopleSoft/JDEdwards and Siebel in particular, combined with Oracle’s very large presence in the DBMS and applications markets, means a huge number of customers have multiple offerings from Oracle and need to re-examine their licensing profile.

#2 Fusion is a compelling open, standards based, vision of applications services that will drive a new wave of profound improvements in business productivity.

#1 Oracle’s revamped management team has proven itself remarkably adept in navigating a complex and aggressive growth strategy, with no obvious missteps."

Oracle shows growth spurt in Europe - Manufacturing Computer Solutions news article: "The company gives several examples of recent wind – such as food and beverage ingredients producer Wild of Germany, which, with 16 manufacturing facilities around the world, which replaced its mySAP systems with a suite of Oracle applications covering process manufacturing, supply chain management, financials, CRM and HR.

Rudolf Wild says it was looking for improvements in: efficiency at plant floor level; quality management; effective control of inventory; optimised profit; optimised pricing and cost transparency; internal productivity and compliance; and automation of manufacturing.

Others with similar stories include Arjo Wiggins of France, Grupo 3A Recoletas of Spain, Alfred McAlpine Business Services, Austriamicrosystems, DilTur, Ficosota ( Syntez & Tessy), Nektar SA, Van Oord ACZ and CIECH. "

Nerd News : Subaru Of America Expands use of Oracle and picks up use of Siebel - Subaru Legacy Forums: "Oracle
(Nasdaq: ORCL) today announced it has expanded its relationship with Subaru
of America, Inc. As part of its efforts to consolidate technology vendors
and standardize on Oracle, Subaru is adding Oracle's Siebel applications to
its existing suite of Oracle products.

'Subaru has been an Oracle customer for many years and we are pleased
to be adding the Siebel application to our data center,' said Brian
Simmermon, Vice President, Information Technology, Subaru of America, Inc.

'We selected Oracle's Siebel applications because they offered us the
greatest flexibility to support our business objectives.'

With Siebel, Subaru will benefit from consolidated information
resources that will enhance the company's overall efficiency of their sales
and marketing efforts. Subaru plans to use Siebel E-Marketing, which
segments customer information and targets prospective buyers with the most
relevant product and marketing information; and Siebel Call Center, to more
effectively manage customer requests and increase satisfaction and loyalty.

'Subaru has an incredible reputation for successful niche marketing and
an extremely loyal owner base,' said Oracle Senior Vice President of CRM
Products, Ed Abbo. 'Our Siebel applications are uniquely suited to enhance
their already customer-centric business philosophy and will help them meet
their business goals and further enhance their customer satisfaction.'"

http://eclipse.sys-con.com/read/353129.htm: "It recalls that in October of 2005, a month after Oracle said it would acquire Siebel, 'SAP announced it would extend its Safe Passage program to Siebel customers, including apparently instantaneous round-the-clock support from SAP TN - whose engineers at that time presumably had spent virtually no time to develop Siebel support software products….How SAP could offer instantaneous, round-the-clock Siebel code support within a few weeks of Oracle's acquisition announcement remained a mystery.'
Even with an expanded staff of 150, Oracle confessed to wondering how a small company like SAP TN could develop and offer 'customized ongoing tax and regulatory updates,' 'fixes for serious issues,' 'full upgrade script support' and 'most remarkably, '30-minute response time, 24x7x365' on software programs for which it had no intellectual property rights' at '50 cents on the dollar, and purported to add full support for an entirely different product line - Siebel - with a wave of the hand. The economics, and the logic, simply did not add up,' adding that 'Oracle has now solved the puzzle. To stave off the mounting competitive threat from Oracle' - after SAP AG CEO Henning Kagermann conceded last July that SAP had lost 2% market share to Oracle - 'SAP unlawfully accessed and copied Oracle's software and support materials.'"

Oracle Alleges Corporate Theft by SAP on Managing Automation: "According to a report issued by The 451 Group, an independent IT analyst firm, 'If someone illegally accessed Oracle's secure site, then action needs to be taken. And it makes sense that Oracle is simply defending against a company looking to undercut a major revenue stream by offering inexpensive support,' the report notes. 'Discerning whether SAP or any non-Oracle entity 'pretexted' Oracle users and accessed its IP should be straightforward. Determining how much IP SAP might have gathered — and whether it is proprietary — may be more difficult,' the report states.
The idea that Oracle would allow its customers access to its source code, however, is farfetched, said Martin Schneider, 451 Group's senior analyst for enterprise software."

Oracle sues rival SAP for ‘corporate theft’ -Software-Infotech-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times: "This allowed SAP to copy thousands of Oracle software products and other confidential materials onto its own servers and compile an illegal library of copyrighted software code, the lawsuit charged. “This case is about corporate theft on a grand scale, committed by the largest German software company — a conglomerate known as SAP,” said the lawsuit, filed in US district court in San Francisco.

An SAP representative in Germany declined to comment on the latest battle in what has become a bitter rivalry. Oracle has spent $20 billion buying software rivals over the past three years to challenge SAP, the leader in corporate applications that help automate everything from accounting to human resources to inventory management. Oracle is expanding into that market as its core database business matures. "

CIOL : News : Intelligroup unveils SAP upgrading soln: "UptimizerND builds on Intelligroup's tool Uptimizer, and extends the capabilities to the New Dimensions applications. It has helped over 400 customers across the world to assess, plan, and execute upgrades when migrating from earlier versions of SAP R/3 to mySAP ERP 2004 or mySAP ERP 2005, Intelligroup said in a statement.

Using Uptimizer, customers have reduced the total cost of upgrades by up to 40 per cent when compared to traditional upgrade processes, Intelligroup added.

'UptimizerND helps to identify the customizations, modules and sub-modules implemented in each of the new dimension products like BW, SCM, CRM, and SRM,” said Sandeep Saberwal, global director, Tools at Intelligroup. "

SAP chief talks up A1S for 'volume' business - ZDNet UK: "When asked about the launch of A1S, Kagermann told ZDNet UK sister site silicon.com: 'It is different to a traditional product launch because it's not just a product.' Notably, he didn't go as far as to call the new play 'on-demand software' or 'software as a service' (SaaS), an area where upstarts such as NetSuite, RightNow and Salesforce.com have prospered and where even the likes of older rivals such as Microsoft and Oracle are moving.
Kagermann said: 'I have not dismissed it. I am saying that software as a service is not solving everything and I am still on this page. What we have seen so far [with SaaS] is more or less only pieces of what you need in a company.
'It's not been running the business, just a piece of it.'
He added SAP considers that 'a hybrid mode is the right one', saying SaaS should be about more than hosting applications off-premises and charging on a pay-as-you-go basis."

SAP chief denies stealing Oracle access codes - Mar. 26, 2007: "The chief executive of German software maker SAP denied rival Oracle's accusation that SAP used customers' online access codes to steal copyrighted software.
'We respect others' intellectual property,' Henning Kagermann said on the fringes of a conference in Munich, Germany on Monday.
U.S. database specialist Oracle said last week it would sue SAP for 'corporate theft on a grand scale,' accusing SAP of gaining repeated and unauthorized access to its password-protected customer-support Web site.
Kagermann said SAP's lawyers would examine the accusations and that no decision had yet been made on how SAP would respond. SAP said Friday it would defend itself 'aggressively' against Oracle's claims. "

The Human Capitalist » Oracle: The Smartest Guys in the Room: "Why I think the Fusion approach has been brilliant…
Although Oracle announced an impressive growth number in new application license sales during this past quarter, I believe they have also frozen a huge chunk of new application spend especially with existing PeopleSoft customers and prevented mass migration to SAP, Workday, Ultimate, etc. Most PeopleSoft customers I have spoken with over the past 12 months have maintained a holding pattern with their spend. Most are waiting for Fusion, while supplementing their ERP-centric application strategy with SaaS vendors such as Taleo and SuccessFactors and a few brave souls have made upgrade to 8.9, 9.0 and beyond.
With Apps Unlimited, they have ensured the customer base that they will have unlimited support for their applications. What a great way to ensure the continued dollars going into the maintenance bucket where huge profits reside.
The lack of clarity around Fusion have set the expectations so low, Oracle only has upside to prove value in the new applications. I believe many wallets will reopen in 2008 and Oracle will have a window of opportunity to reclaim and even grow wallet retention. If they fail though, it could leave the door wide open to the new incumbents and even SAP"

In addition to flexibility, Telecom Argentina also selected Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management for its scalability. Telecom Argentina expects significant growth, particularly in new services and in ADSL broadband Internet. The Oracle solution will help Telecom Argentina efficiently deliver and bill for services, as its subscriber-base continues to grow.

“Telecom Argentina is committed to offering next-generation products and high quality service. We needed our IT applications to support that mission,” said Guillermo Desimoni, Director of Information, Telecom Argentina. “We considered other vendors, but chose Oracle because it had the best solution to meet our immediate and future needs."

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=120518

Energy giant enters round two with SAP - Technology - ArabianBusiness.com: "In the first phase, Al-Khafji, which is jointly owned by Kuwait Gulf Oil and Aramco Gulf Operations, deployed SAP’s finance, human resources and payroll modules.

“We’re doing a second phase extending their ERP solution, leveraging the investment they made initially in SAP. We’re now adding extra modules and allowing them to get the maximum return on the SAP investment,” Peter Hynes, vice president of ERP systems integrator Atos Origin Middle East, which worked on both phases of the project, said.

The second phase of the project is expected to take between a year and 15 months, Hynes said. "

Oracle and Savi Technology Provide Critical Information Link to Track Active RFID-tagged Containers Shipped From Hong Kong to Japan: "Oracle and
Savi Technology, a Lockheed Martin company (NYSE: LMT), teamed up to
provide a critical information link to track in real time the location of
cargo containers shipped from Hong Kong to Japan. The work has just been
completed as a pilot project initiated by GS1 EPCglobal, the not-for-profit
standards organization driving adoption of the Electronic Product Code to
improve supply chain performance.
The milestone project was the first time that real-time information
generated from active, battery-powered RFID tags on sea containers was
exchanged with EPC Information Services (EPCIS), a draft GS1 EPCglobal
standard enabling trading partners to communicate in a common computer
language on objects moving throughout the supply chain. The communication
interface with the EPCIS Server and Repository was enabled through
integration of Oracle(R) Sensor Edge Server, a component of Oracle Fusion
Middleware, as well as Savi Site Manager operating software and active RFID
tag and data collection systems."

Business Two Zero » Blog Archive » SAP A1S - the game changing software on show at CeBIT: "According to the spokesman, Kagermann promised to give the market more details about the product over the next few months and said the company is still on track to bring A1S to market in the fourth quarter of 2007 or the first quarter of 2008. Apparently there are 150 beta customers already using it.
But the rollout of the new hosted service will not steal customers from B1, SAP’s lower cost traditional offering that is also highly preconfigured, Kagermann said. On the contrary, “we expect more than 50,000 of our targeted customer base of 100,000 by 2010 to be Business One customers,” he said.
If you piece these ideas together, none of the questions I asked in my earlier piece have been addressed. If anything I’ve got more questions:
If SAP are segmenting the SME market by size with B1, A1S and then All-in-One, and if the product in the middle band has significantly lower cost of ownership, reduced consulting and quicker implementation, why would customers buy the other two products? The car comparison works comparing SME requirements against a larger enterprise, but doesn’t work within the SME space as they’ve defined it.
How will the A1S business model fit within the normal SAP culture and alongside the 3 other traditional products?
SAP have 39,000 customers to date. How are they going to get to 100,000 customers by 2010? Even more importantly, how are over 50,000 of those customers going to be B1 customers? I just don’t see how they are going to get there from here. "

SAP founders won't sell to private equity-report News Mergers/Acquisitions Reuters: "Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner and Klaus Tschira together hold almost one third of the German software maker, whose market capitalisation is about 44 billion euros ($58.15 billion).
'The SAP founders have made clear that they will not sell their shares to a private equity company,' he told Germany's Boersen-Zeitung.
German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche said this month that U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake was mulling a bid for part or all of one of SAP's founders' stakes, and that one of the founders was ready to sell.
A spokesman for Dietmar Hopp said last week that Hopp had no intention of selling his stake in the world's biggest business software maker. "

SAP demonstrates A1S to select groups InfoWorld News 2007-03-15 By John Blau, IDG News Service: "SAP is demonstrating a beta version of its new hosted midmarket application to select groups at the CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany.
The application, known internally as A1S, is currently being tested by around 150 customers, said SAP CEO Henning Kagermann following a demonstration of the software Thursday.
No firm date has been set for a commercial launch, but general availability is expected in the second half of this year, according to Kagermann.
'This is a completely new model for us,' Kagermann said. 'We have to ensure that not only the product but also the service are tops.'
A1S will target midmarket customers who seek an inexpensive, easy-to-deploy, low-risk suite of business applications, including ERP, CRM, and SCM. The hosted application will be available as a monthly subscription. It will give smaller, cost-sensitive companies the flexibility to set up and test the software on their own before deciding to make a purchase, using a 'try, run, and adapt' model. "

Computerworld - CEBIT - SAP demonstrates A1S to select groups: "The application, known internally as A1S, is currently being tested by around 150 customers, said SAP CEO Henning Kagermann following a demonstration of the software Thursday.
No firm date has been set for a commercial launch but general availability is expected in the second half of this year, according to Kagermann.
'This is a completely new model for us,' Kagermann said. 'We have to ensure that not only the product but also the service are tops.'
A1S will target midmarket customers who seek an inexpensive, easy-to-deploy, low-risk suite of business applications including ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) and SCM (supply chain management). The hosted application will be available as a monthly subscription. It will give smaller, cost-sensitive companies the flexibility to set up and test the software on their own before deciding to make a purchase, using a 'try, run and adapt' model. "

SAP Does Road Work at CeBIT: "At the time, SAP CEO Henning Kagermann described a new product, code-named A1S, that would feature a new code base suitable for an on-demand delivery model and a more flexible pricing structure to appeal to mid-market companies. He said the product would launch at the end of the first quarter of 2007.
Today, Kagermann explained that A1S will have a phased launch, beginning with today's announcement that the product is in trials with a group of selected customers. He said that since A1S involves a new business model as well as a new code base, it will not have a traditional launch, but will be launched over a series of events that include a wider circle of beta customers.
'It's not helpful for me to just show a product, I also have to understand and see if the entire process works and is appreciated,' said a spokesman paraphrasing Kagermann's remarks, made in German, for internetnews.com.
According to the spokesman, Kagermann promised to give the market more details about the product over the next few months and said the company is still on track to bring A1S to market in the fourth quarter of 2007 or the first quarter of 2008.
In January, Kagermann said that A1S would be available as a hosted service in 2007 and have an on-premise module available in 2008. "

SAP Partners Introduce New SAP® All-in-One Solutions, Delivering Micro-Vertical Industry Solutions for Midsize Companies: "SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced more than 80 new additions to its portfolio of qualified SAP® All-in-One industry solutions as partners leverage the first enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform for midsize companies from SAP to provide customers with new levels of agility and adaptability in business management. Taking advantage of enablement programs and tools from SAP to introduce new and upgraded solutions based on SAP ERP 2005, partners across the globe have introduced an initial

14 new solutions in the Americas,
15 new solutions in Asia Pacific and
53 in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

SAP made the announcement at the CeBIT 2007 trade fair, being held in Hanover, Germany, March 15 - 21."

Well - it was supposed to be all done in 2006... see the ESA roadmap... and now a total of 82 solutions are on mySAP ERP - which ships since March 2003 - since 4 - yes FOUR years - out of 580 solutions in total of 940 partners -- so why are even SAP partners no moving quickly to mySAP ERP?!

CRM Systems - Shortage Puts SAP Workers in Demand: "A shortage of skilled SAP workers is making it difficult for I.T. departments to fill open jobs and caused the average salary for certain high-level SAP professionals to rise 15.6% in the past year, according to Foote Partners, a consulting firm in Connecticut that studies I.T. workforce and compensation.
Foote Partners says the average base salary for directors of SAP program management rose from $115,468 to $133,500 in the calendar year that just ended. This increase of 15.6% dwarfs the typical increases in I.T. salaries of 3% to 5% a year, says David Foote, CEO and chief research officer.
'That's a monster figure,' Foote says.
Overall, pay for 143 leading I.T. certifications averaged a loss of 0.1% of their value in 2006, while pay for 127 non-certified I.T. skills rose nearly 8%, Foote Partners reported Monday.
SAP, the world's largest enterprise software company, has 12 million users across 100,600 installations in North, Central and South America. The demand for employees who can deploy and maintain SAP software is fueled by the company's numerous products, from customer relationship management tools to governance, risk and compliance solutions. "

SAP CRM projects at risk, Gartner says: "Through the end of 2008, 25% of CRM projects will be postponed or cancelled, according to Gartner.
This rate of postponement and cancellation is largely a result of a CRM skill shortage -- of consultants and systems integrators in particular -- the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm says in a recent report.
SAP CRM projects are more likely than projects involving other CRM vendors to run into these problems.
'Demand outstrips supply for skilled, experienced SAP CRM consultants,' said Matthew Goldman, research director for Gartner. That's thanks not only to new SAP CRM sales, but because many customers held off on deploying CRM until they finished their ERP rollout. "

SAP firms struggle to find experts: "Companies are having trouble finding the right expertise when starting some SAP projects, and if the trend continues, the result could be costly project delays, according to analysts at AMR Research Inc.

The gap in expertise is putting pressure on consultants and third-party service providers to find the right experts to run SAP projects. The talent pool for SAP pros is lacking in a number of areas, including SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Customer Relationship Management, and SAP Product Lifecycle Management implementations. "

Microsoft creates 'Duet' for Dynamics InfoWorld News 2007-03-12 By China Martens, IDG News Service: "Microsoft and SAP released the first version of Duet in June 2006. The integration software enables users to access data and processes from SAP's mySAP ERP applications via Microsoft's Office suite. It includes integration capabilities for different business scenarios such as time, leave and organization management.
Back in January, Dennis Moore, SAP's general manager of emerging solutions, said his company and Microsoft were on track to ship Duet 1.5 later this year along with development tools so that third parties will be able to customize and build on top of the Duet-enabled scenarios.
Rival ERP vendor Oracle claims it's had tight integration in place between its applications and Microsoft's Office for some time.
'Duet? We did all that five years ago,' John Wookey, senior vice president of applications at Oracle, said in a recent interview. 'PeopleSoft, Oracle and Siebel did it and we don't charge extra for it,' he added, describing Duet as 'the most uninspiring thing I've seen in the software industry.' "

SAP keeps artificial heart manufacturer pumping: "SAP's eagerness to work with Abiomed's unique requirements was also a plus.
'The answer from SAP was never 'no' to any of our requests,' Lubin explained.
After the six-month vendor selection process, the project kicked off at the beginning of 2006. The system, which included financials, human resources, manufacturing and portal elements, went live six months later with relatively few problems.
'Were there wrinkles? Absolutely,' said Lubin, but he added that despite those troubles, the system was up and running on day one.
The biggest problems occurred where business processes involved multiple departments and functional areas, rather than individual system functionalities, he said. "

ARC Rates Oracle's MDM: "In ARC Advisory Group's recently published report, titled 'Master Data Management Worldwide Outlook Market Analysis and Forecast Through 2011,' Oracle is characterized as 'the clear MDM industry leader with 39.8 percent market share of total MDM software and services, and year-over-year growth of close to 50 percent."

The Windows Observer--Microsoft Unveils 'Duet'-Like Interface, New ERP Releases: "One year ago, at the 2006 Convergence show in San Diego, Microsoft and SAP announced the pending availability of Duet, a product that turned Microsoft Office--specifically Outlook--into an interface for SAP's mySAP ERP software. Duet enabled users to perform certain business functions, such as entering time and attendance information, from an Outlook screen, such as the calendaring system served by Exchange Server.
Now, Microsoft is using the 2007 Convergence show being held this week in San Diego as the launch pad for its own version of Duet, called Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office. There will be two versions of the package--one called Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and Windows Sharepoint Services, and the other Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server. For each, the software will provide users the capability to access specific business processes contained in Dynamics AX, Dynamics SL, Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, and the FRx budgeting software, via Office interfaces. "

Happy 10th birthday, NetWeaver: "To bring the discussion full circle, even MDM has historic roots. In an interesting series of lectures that are available for download at Plattner's Institute's Web site, SAP founder Hasso Plattner covers the history of enterprise application computing using (of course) R/2, R/3 and their follow-on products as examples. He begins by describing the real-time-integrated nature of the very first mainframe-based R/2, when everything else at that time (MAPICS, J.D. Edwards, etc.) was batch or file transfer-based, and he shows how that feature and function was brought over to R/3. Plattner then gives SAP's admittedly weak argument for splitting BW, as well as CRM and SCP, apart from the transactional ERP system, which SAP began to do in the 1996 timeframe. With this change, SAP was no longer truly 'real-time integrated.'
Plattner says he never really favored the split; he notes that this design decision is why SAP applications at the time of the lecture (as of early 2006) have three different customer data definitions (in the CRM instance, the mobile sales instance and the ERP instance). He is happy to say that SAP will have the data definitions back together by 2008 under NetWeaver. This is what NetWeaver MDM is all about. "

Eye on Oracle – A SearchOracle.com Blog » Will the Oracle-Hyperion deal hurt SAP?: "In a conference call this morning, Oracle president Charles Phillips said the deal for Hyperion, which among other things makes BI software that aggregates financial data into handy dashboards, will make Oracle the leader in the corporate performance management (CPM) market and prop up its growing BI business. He also said the Hyperion deal will give Oracle critical analytical applications including a new enterprise planning system, a powerful financial consolidation product, a strong OLAP engine and a large field sales organization.

According to blogger Larry Dignan, the biggest takeaway from today’s Oracle-Hyperion conference call relates to Hyperion’s 1,900 strong sales force. Hyperion serves the financial analytics space, therefore that sales organization has a lot of experience dealing directly with CFOs. And CFOs ultimately make the buying decisions for their companies. During the call, Phillips indicated that Oracle may be able to build on that relationship and upsell those CFOs on other Oracle applications.

What’s more, many of those CFOs work for companies that use SAP products. Building a good relationship with them — and then upselling them on Oracle’s SAP alternatives — could eventually Oracle chip away at SAP’s customer base. (Incidentally, shares of SAP fell considerably today on word of the Oracle-Hyperion deal, according to published reports.)"

MySAP ERP upgrades: Users are the key to success: "With all these changes, keeping users trained on the system was very important, and difficult to accomplish. McCormick echoed Rivest's thoughts that SAP projects, especially, require close collaboration with users.
'Contrary to popular belief, SAP is not intuitive. People do have some trouble figuring out what they should be doing,' McCormick said. 'We have to find ways to let them know that the SAP system is what we have and it's powerful -- it can do anything we need it to.'
SaskPower had its functional team conduct a comprehensive analysis of the system changes and issue a report that detailed what the old system and upgraded system looked like and described each business transaction where changes occurred. "

Oracle to Acquire BI Provider Hyperion for $3.3 Billion on Managing Automation: "Forrester Research analyst Ray Wang, who described Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion as a 'great play,' questioned whether SAP can continue to emphasize its organic growth strategy, rather than acquisitions. 'This acquisition puts a lot of pressure on SAP,' Wang said. 'The real question is whether SAP will change strategy.'"