Wow! What an amazing week. SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 is now behind us, but the work we described last week is just beginning. Last year, we talked about a transformation happening in three areas: in-memory, cloud, mobility. This year, I wanted to focus the keynote on HANA, not because it’s the only innovation we are delivering but because it is at the heart of SAP’s renewal and is core to everything we are working on. We had a very simple goal in mind: to show the business value of HANA through the customers that have seen the value firsthand. We’ve talked about speed and performance, and now we wanted to show the value. The best way to do this was through the customers voice. The response has been truly incredible.
If you have a few minutes to look through the replays of customer testimonials, it is definitely worth it. One of the amazing things we saw at SAPPHIRE was the power of customers hearing from their peers directly. The use cases were so varied and global, representing all types of industries, there wasn’t a single customer in the audience that couldn’t identify with what they were hearing from other CIOs, CEOs and LoB execs. I am sure you will recognize some of these faces but I am also sure you will recognize the challenges they face and how HANA can help.
But while my keynote focused on the customer stories, there is still a huge amount of work going on around the product. HANA is already in or is coming to every SAP product. We really have a whole flood coming. We’ve talked over the last few months about breakthrough analytics, new and renewed applications and overall IT simplification. And at SAPPHIRE, I previewed the HANA AppCloud, designed for customers who want to experience the power of HANA in native on-demand apps, starting with SAP BIOD, Carbon Impact OD, sales & ops planning, smart meter analytics. There is so much more we are doing and will do.
- HANA itself, for SAP and non-SAP oriented analytics and using a wide variety of clients especially Business Objects BI tools
- HANA as a db replacement for BW (and more -- a *lot* of BW calculations actually move inside HANA for the rocket effect)
- HANA with integrated text search, leveraging its TREX roots
- HANA in our application platform, both NGAP and River, and in all our technology products
- HANA for planning apps, especially EPM, S+OP and all our planning apps. With live cache integration on its way, we can start the refactoring train towards APO, rethought ATP (that Hasso showed in his speech), etc
- HANA for refactoring existing apps (CO-PA and cash flow+liquidity mgmt)
- HANA for full existing apps (B1, ByDesign, Business Suite – bringing immediate value to as well as incrementally refactoring everything)
- HANA for new apps (SWP, S+OP, Charitra, RecallGenie, Smart Meter Analytics, personal energy mgmt, and the entire area of personal applications)
- HANA on-demand for BIOD, CI, and others
We have barely scratched the surface. It is really something. And perhaps the best part is, customers don't have to worry about when to bring their preferred scenarios to HANA. They can start anywhere, and incrementally move onwards and upwards from there. HANA's timelessness ensures unlimited scaling of the infrastructure with increased usage, and also that each new capability, and the scenarios it supports, brings value non-disruptively. So customers can start where it makes most sense, and grow from there.
It’s about empowering the end users. We are limited only by our imaginations. My friend and mentor Alan Kay put it best in a video message he recorded for my SAPPHIRE keynote. We didn’t get to it in the keynote, but I hope you will find his comments re the future as inspirational as I have.
And on one final note before I close .. I’d like to mention a heartfelt thanks to the team at SAP that brought the customers’ voices to life. Aiaz Kazi, Amit Sinha, Jason Wolf, Ritika Suri, Sam Yen, Sanjay Rajagopalan, Shabana Khan, Kaustav Mitra and many others. They worked tirelessly, especially the last 7 weeks before Sapphire, to put all the customer experiences together. A deep and heartfelt thanks to them, for their tireless efforts, passion and world-class competence. Looking forward to scaling the next mountaintop!
