SAP News

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. "