Introduction
I wasn’t present at SAPPHIRE NOW. Nowadays it doesn’t mean I haven’t checked out the content. I’m very glad SAP gives non attendees the opportunity to peek in through live feeds, coverage and replays.
I was only able to follow a few sessions live due to time difference and the fact that I have to look after a ten months old son who is starting to walk around and pulls open every closet that should not be pulled open and a two and a half year daughter who likes creating puzzles, playing memory games and painting.
Keynote
If you enjoyed the keynote on business in 2015 you will want to see Dr. Michio Kaku in action in different videos on Youtube such as “The World in 2030”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY&feature=related
For business it will be a challenge to keep up as more and more companies really need to increase their pace to keep up and even beyond that they should innovate and furthermore reinvent themselves.
SAP has already caught the vibe that the new generation of business people is expecting different things. They want to have data available anywhere, any time and any place. They don’t want to wait for hours to know what is what and above all they don’t want to be covered in a stream of too much information. SAP is doing significant effort to innovate and leap into the future and for me the keynote was chosen wisely.
Content
I have followed the content on SCN before/during/after the event and I have to say there was a lot of activity around SAPPHIRE NOW. The main pointers have stayed the same: mobility, cloud and in-memory which are not to my surprise. I did see less content in the replays on Solution Manager but I also know Solution Manager 7.1 was available on the showcase floor so I would assume people who went in for Solution Manager also got some information out of the event.
What I personally like is the fact that most sessions are limited in time which works better in my opinion because that way you can check out more differentiated content and if you make the presentations lengthier people tend to drag the presentation along and they start saying things twice and so on. It is also known that the attention of attendees drops after some time.
Business Objects what?
I did get a bit lost in all the business objects products that were shown. While I most of the times see applications that can provide added value, the sheer amount of products and the confusing naming and versioning makes it hard to see the forest for the trees. I’m not so impressed with the technical configuration which was not covered by the event. There seem to be some serious security gaps on web services that are to be called and even the fact that some products require the end-user to extract data from a SAP system onto their local hard drive and then upload that data into Business Objects sounds like a hassle and it doesn’t help promote user friendliness and ease of use of the product.
It would a good thing if SAP releases more mobility demos so that we can actually check out a demo sample on a mobile device and show it to the customers. I know there is for example BI On Demand that can be showcased but I would love to see more of those demo possibilities. It would definitely help sell the products.
Coverage
One of the things I also very much like is the coverage that is done during the event. The video interviews done by Natascha Thomson, the video interviews that where done in the cube and videos posted by attendees on YouTube all contribute to the possibilities to get more insight and knowledge on different topics.
You should definitely check out the blog on The specified item was not found. by Natascha Thomson and be sure to check the video interview incorporated in that blog.
Looking forward to TechED 2011
I do hope there will be new content and more technical coverage available by the time of TechED 2011. I will be attending TechED 2011 EMEA in Madrid in November which will also feature SAPPHIRE NOW at the same time which is great. There should be a lot of content there and I’m looking forward to meet people in real life. I do hope to see new content and not getting a repeat of what we have already seen before.
SAPPHIRE NOW didn't offer much technical content which is probably more likely to be seen in TechED but still in general I feel the lack of technical content. I have addressed this concern in the past and I will address it whenever it is called for. It would be nice for the technical people to get more insight on how the new technology can be properly integrated into our existing SAP infrastructures.
Be sure to keep an eye on the date of TechED 2011 as it already shifted one day for which I had to get my flight tickets changed and the date can apparently still be subject to change.
