Humour@SAP: II. License Expiration Dec. 31st 9999
“If Mars and Venus are standing in one line, then the update of customer information will dump between 2:43 and 2:44pm for aquariuses, but only if your cubicle is facing south and forgot to walk your dog in the morning.”
“Solution: Improve your outstanding skills in facial expressions and buy a dog.”
A nearly undiscovered path of reporting humourous “features” (There are no “bugs”, there were never “bugs”, there will never be “bugs” and I don’t know how to spell bugs – text of a bumper sticker seen on the car of an SAP-developer) is another TLA (three letter acronym) called OSS.
Ozzy Osbourne?
Original SAP Software?
Oracle Sales Slump?
As far off from the right answer, as SAP screens are pretty. The right answer is:
Online Support System
Now that we have taken this hurdle, what can you do with it? E.g. posting a question on April 1st (no joke) with the following issue (ripped from the OSS by courtesy of Mario Herger):
—snip—
Question from April 1st 1998, 06:12:79 Jens S.
-
- Hello,
At each login to an R/3 system a popup displays the expiration date of the SAP R/3 licence ( 31.12.9999 ). My question is now: do we have to extend our contract with SAP in order to use the system after this date?
In preparation of the pending millennium change (9999==>10000) it is unclear, which R/3 release will cover those requirements. Please inform us about that, so that we can start in time with a project.Thank you very much in advance
Berlin, April 1st, 1998
Jens S.
M. Consulting AG
- Hello,
Response from April 1st 1998, 07:00:09 Stefan S.
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- Dear Mr. S.,
In its 26 year history SAP has always shown vision and was always anxious to support their customers with their project planning. I am sure you will understand that in this case we reserve the right to have some planning insecurity.
For the afore mentioned millennium change we require the R/3 release ET/12.0 (ET=extraterrestrial). A direct upgrade from ET/11.0 to ET/12.0 is not planned, because ET/12.0 experienced huge changes in the modul “matter-transmission”.
The changes requested by the Intergalactic Committee in the area of Planet Management and Comet Distribution will already be included.
A separate extension of the contract between your company and SAP is not necessary. If you paid the yearly maintenance fee, the software will be beamed to you in a timely manner.
We put your question for follow up for Q3 9999 and will get in contact in time with your successor for detailed questions.Best regards,
Stefan S. (Scotty)
R/3 Future Release Planning
- Dear Mr. S.,
—snap—
More anecdotes can be found in the Humour@SAP weblog series.
If a solution was found, which is also relevant for other customers, the solution or the support patches, etc. are made available in so called OSS notes. That's comparable to the MS Knowledgebase or Bugzilla reports.
Mario