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TuncayKaraca
Active Contributor
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Last week a lot of news appeared about IBM’s new products IBM Workspace for SAP Software and IBM Lotus Notes access for SAP solutions. It has been said both are of an initiative dubbed “Project Harmony”. I’ve never heard Project Harmony. The question is what “Project Harmony” is.

I know that SAP and IBM have been working for a long time and IBM has an SAP competence center in its each location. It means that IBM even serves SAP consulting to SAP users. When I was working at I-BIMSA, joint-venture of Sabanci Holding and IBM Turkey, we were working with IBM employees closely. You can guess that IBM servers that include MS Windows, IBM AIX or even AS/400; and IBM DB2 database products make IBM works with SAP a lot. SAP –users- is a big customer for IBM. IBM is a big supporter for SAP. Put yourself instead of SAP, you would work with big brothers are Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, HP, etc. It is obvious that Microsoft and Oracle are kind of competitor of SAP. So you would be eager to work IBM or HP rather than others. Right?

It sounds me that this announcement is a kind of respond to Microsoft and SAP’s new product Duet for Microsoft and SAP. Indeed, InfoWorld said IBM harmonizes Notes-SAP links to feed off Duet.

With Duet you can see some integration between SAP HR Module and Microsoft Outlook so far. What is one of Outlook competitor products? IBM’s Lotus Notes. At first it seems Microsoft with Duet gained an advantage against IBM. But I guess IBM’s relationship with SAP is stronger and older than Microsoft’s. But Microsoft is the leader in Office programs.

I know many Sabanci Group, is one of the big business groups in Turkey, companies use Lotus Notes. I am not sure they would attempt to use those IBM’s products with their SAP. I am sure that SAP salespeople will try to sell them and at last maybe some will try.

It seems that here Microsoft and SAP work together, produces and sells together, but IBM works alone, maybe just gets support or approve from SAP. I could not see any news about IBM’s new product at SAP Press Room website. I think what Microsoft and SAP do is well than IBM does.

One of my other concerns is the products’ name. Duet what a great name! “Project Harmony” is a good name too! But what are IBM’s new product names? Answer is: IBM Workspace for SAP Software and IBM Lotus Notes access for SAP solutions. What!  Why didn’t you IBM find a better name? Rocky Oliver, is from IBM, calls IBM Lotus Notes access for SAP solutions as NaSS. It is even like a hard name! Isn’t it? The name of the product must be easy to remember. It shows that Microsoft’s marketing policies are smarter than IBM’s marketing policies. It is irony that most people believe that IBM is a sale company more than a tech company. IBM is a big blue because of sales force. Who gives the name of the products inside IBM :sad: Project Managers, Programmers, Salespeople, Managers, Executives?

So what happens is this another competition thing, Microsoft attacked and then IBM defended! SAP is happier among others. On the other hand Oracle watches everything!

I would like to summarize and write an article about technical specifications of these products on next post. Coming soon :smile:

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