BW4/HANA Roadmap Client Rumblings

[former_member206933]

With BW4/HANA being released a mere two days ago, reception has been mixed among clients.

Essentially, the sentiment is that SAP has done an inadequate job discussing the release prior to the firm announcement on 31-AUG and those with a BW on HANA migration "in progress" who have already substantially completed the 7.4 migration (SBX, DEV, QA) feel blindsided with the release of something that they perceive to be "substantially better."

What could we, as practitioners have done to better prepare our clients for this release? 

Well, one could make the argument that we practitioners could have looked to the HANA Distinguished Engineers for some indication of this major release; though, there is nary a mention of BW4/HANA on the Distinguished Engineer blog.

SAP product development should choose an envoy to make upcoming announcements like this public to practitioners who are entrusted with roadmapping multi-billion dollar clients who rule deca-million or centi-million dollar budgets.  With foresight, we can remain trusted advisors, with HANA the center of the ERP universe for years to come.