Captures from SAPPHIRE NOW

[Former Member]

This blog is a little delayed as it was meant for 2^nd week of this month, but even holidays intervene with Twitter streams I found out.

So, a month has gone by since the biggest SAP event of the year came to an end, in true Bon Jovi style. I’m talking about SAPPHIRE NOW, just in case someone had the Bon Jovi reference fly over their head, missed the title or my excessive use of tags in this post.

Shortly after the completion of the event I had a round-up on Twitter. I wanted 140 letter key takeaways from some of the voices in the SAP ecosystem and reached out to eight individuals I personally enjoy following on various social platforms. If you have any active interest in SAP commentary or SCN, you will likely know all eight. Not surprisingly I got very similar answers from all of them, as the core messages were loud.

I had also planned to follow up with the same guys a month after the event, to check if they had seen anything develop in the world of SAP which changed or provided additional commentary to their initial takeaways. I’m off the opinion that letting things settle and then provide commentary, when everyone’s had their dessert coffee, is a better approach than be jubilant when the starters are served. So here goes,

	Initial key takeaway	4 weeks after SAPPHIRENOW
jon.reed @jonerp	Simplicity - worthy aspiration but way harder than it looks - covers everything from UX to install to service, pricing and support	No big changes in the last month. Content by Jon I recommend: http://diginomica.com/2014/06/06/sapphire-wrap/ A barroom conversation about SAP and the Cloud – but without the noise and the drinks
tammy.powlas @tpowlas	SAP implification, ASUG2014 sharing customer stories, Captsully keynote inspiration, BI client convergence	No commentary so far or changes. [Tammy if you’re reading this, let me know if you got anything to add? :smile: ]
timo.elliott @timoelliott	SAP HANA has gone from being an exotic tool for speed to "simply" the default platform for new apps and analytics	We said "the way forward is simple" -- not "easy" -- but we're here to help. Content by Timo I recommend: The Way Forward is Simple | Business Analytics
Ray Wang @rwang0	Simplification must cover product roadmap, services, pricing, customer experience, and user experience	Looking to get an update post put up on it. (I’ll link to it when published). Even though this falls a bit outside of the ‘4 weeks after theme’ I recommend Ray’s piece from the 30th May: http://blog.softwareinsider.org/2014/05/30/event-report-answers-to-the-top-12-questions-about-sap-ah...
jarret.pazahanick2 @SAP_Jarret	SAP said the word "simple" 100's of times but didn't explain how customers are really going to get the "simplicity"	SAP screamed "simple" from the rooftops at Sapphire but I am still waiting to hear more about the realistic "how" for customers.
steve.rumsby @steverumsby	The future is Simple HANA. But how you get there from here isn't quite clear yet...:-)	Pretty much the same. SAP are selling a simple future, but now they really need to simplify the journey. Harder problem! Content by Steve I recommend: SAP Screen Personas at SapphireNOW
henrikwagner @henrikwagner73	Virtual VMware HANA Prod support will accelerate adoption of HANA & give clients & SP partners flexible deployment options	Incredible to see the positive feedback from HANA clients since Sapphire leveraging VMware to build consolidated infrastructure. Content by Henrik I recommend: Breaking new boundaries of Innovation with DSSD | Henrik Wagner
martin.gillet2 @mgillet	Fiori Free. Willingness to adopt change & simplify. Great Avgeek keynote. Fruitful encounters & workshops	I'll stand by my first feedback for now. Thanks.

I think Henrik’s point on “more options to deploy HANA the better” is a good one. I believe many SAP customers got HANA at some point on their roadmap now, but it’s imperative for SAP to give customers as many ways to use and adopt the HANA platform as possible. Higher and quicker adoption needs to be present before SAP can achieve many of their longer term strategic goals and have customers “Run Simple”.

Besides the captures above I would also like to recommend you to Craig Powers (@TheCraigPowers) two days wrap up over at ASUG News as it’s quite enjoyable reading. I would also refer to benjamin.wilk post with a whole foray of links to SAP Support blogs and videos, pretty useful repository.

Finally, as you rarely get anything for free from SAP i.e. Fiori and Personas, I wanted to invite everyone to head over to bobcaswell’s blog to get some guidelines on how to get started and take advantage of these UX products.