Idea Place & GSIG for PI : Can they complement each other?

[Shabarish_Nair]

Undoubtedly, SAP has now put in focus and investment onto enabling PI as a strategic tool and thus bridging the potential gaps that was stopping many customers from adopting PI as their enterprise wide SOA ESB. The signs are visible Process Orchestration being a major contributor to that confidence. The recent release of B2B add ons is another factor. I am also informed that we can soon see many more such enhancements to the product suite. So seems its exciting times indeed!

As many of you are aware, there is a SAP driven focus on engaging the community and customers to provide inputs and ideas in the space of Process Integration called the Idea Place. Similarly, there are customer and user driven initiatives like the GSIG for PI who are trying to influence SAP to make enhancements and better the current SOA middleware suite.

What potentially seems to be missing is the synchronization of both these initiatives. Do we see a possible opportunity to bridge the gap and channelize these initiatives into one single stream for better results? Which of the given ideas/requirements does SAP give priority to? Is it the Idea place or GSIG for PI that has the real ability to influence the product management teams within SAP?

My personal experience on this has been confusing. At TechEd last year, I could see that many from the Product management teams were aware of the GSIG initiative but oblivious to SAP's own Idea place. While some of the SAP folks were all gaga about Idea Place and were constantly recommending to float ideas the best of which they mentioned SAP was keen to realize in future EHP or SP. I think this lack of common direction is a bit disturbing.

I personally contribute both to Idea place and the GSIG list. But what I would love to see is eventually one single platform rather than multiple groups. Either the Idea place requirements feed into the GSIG list or the GSIG list into Idea place. Why two different mediums?

Also it would be great if SAP could come out with an yearly article on how and what GSIG requirements or Idea place idea's have been realized. I am sure the community will appreciate it.

So I end this blog with a question. Idea Place & GSIG for PI : Can they complement each other?

Do let your thoughts known. Feel free to comment.