All eyes on SAPPHIRE NOW in 2011
2010 was a year of change, even turbulence, for SAP - particularly at the leadership level, with the replacement of CEO Leo Apotheker by co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hageman Snabe. The new leadership brought renewed confidence, which certainly showed in 2010 results. The bold acquisition of Sybase gave a position in mobility, the second largest business application growth topic behind SaaS.
Momentum was maintained into 2011, as shown in the company's Q1-2011 results, where software sales were up by 26%, even if earnings disappointed as operating margin fell from 22% to under 20%.
Now, just over a year on from their appointment, the co-CEOs need to show they can continue to drive profitable growth. "Innovation" has been their watchword, and thus we, together with SAP's customers and the whole ecosystem, are keenly anticipating this month's SAPPHIRE NOW user conference for its new strategy, enhanced by new cloud and mobility solutions, and the usual slew of announcements. Critical areas to watch are:
- Mobility: with the Sybase acquisition firmly 'under its belt', we look forward to further articulation of strategy, product development and how both partners and customers can begin building solutions on its mobile platform;
- Cloud and software-as-a-service: now that Business ByDesign appears to be ready for prime time, SAP principally needs to demonstrate that it can build a volume business in this area. But there's more to SAP's SaaS offerings than ByD alone. The recent departure of the head of its large enterprise SaaS solutions area labeled "Lines of Business," John Wookey, has raised questions about the company's direction around SaaS - we are looking for clarification, updates, and more generally, who's grabbed the reins of this business?
- Business analytics and in-memory database: this is an equally strategic area for SAP, building on the company's much-vaunted "HANA"; however with the recent release of Business Objects 4.0, a major upgrade, there may not be much news to come in analytics;
- Social media and collaboration: one of the hottest topics in IT right now, SAP has its own take on social/collaboration for business with StreamWork; on its unveiling, this received some criticism for being too specific, and the latest announcements have gone some way to generalizing it: we look forward to learning more, and to see how much customer uptake it has had.
The new products and directions - announced and to come - though surely welcome, will present users and related service providers with challenges around choice, migration and integration. The 2011 conference will produce much food for thought, across the whole SAP ecosystem.
