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Author's profile photo Denys van Kempen
Denys van Kempen
June 13, 2020 7 minute read

SAP Sapphire 2022

SAP Sapphire 2022 is coming up, edition number 33, and this year SAP’s annual business conference is

  • back in Orlando
  • back online, and
  • back on tour!

For those new to the event, but also for those that have attended before, below a list of resources, references, and some of the highlights of previous years.

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SAP Sapphire 2022

For the latest announcements, visit

On Tour

  • May 10-12: Orlando
  • May 12: Mexico City
  • May 17: The Hague
  • May 23–24: Madrid
  • June 8–9: Zurich
  • July 7: Beijing
  • July 12: Tokyo
  • September 9: Sao Paulo
  • September 16: Munich

Social Media

For the buzz, subscribe / follow

 

You may have noticed that the name of the event is no longer the all caps vociferous SAP SAPPHIRE NOW but the more subtle SAP Sapphire (as used prior to 2010).

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Perennial Highly Integrated R/2-R/3 Exchange

For those just joining, you might have imagined that because IBM picked blue and Microsoft azure, SAP selected sapphire. But no.

R2USER89

We need to go back to 33 years to 1989 when SAP organised its first user conference – a radically new event type at the time. Keep in mind that software user groups did not yet exist so the idea was to bring customers together, share information about what was being developed, and get insights about what customers wanted. What a concept!

The conference was named R2USER89, held in Lausanne, with almost 500 participants from 20+ countries, If it wasn’t for the generosity of Coal India Ltd, who had come up with the name SAPPHIRE, short for SAP’s Perennial Highly Integrated R/2-R/3 Exchange (used for an internal knowledge transfer project), we might have attended S4USER22 this year.

And so it happened that the first SAPPHIRE was held in 1991 at the legendary Scanticon Conference Center Hotel (now Princeton Marriott) in New Jersey, followed some weeks later by the European edition in Nice, France.

According to contemporary accounts, Hasso Plattner introduced SAP R/3 and there was some buzz about this new thing called the “Internet”.

Source: How SAPPHIRE was born? (2014)

ASUG + SAPPHIRE NOW

Even the origins of the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group go back to the event. Although ASUG was founded in 1991, it was conceived some months before during a SAPPHIRE wine-and-dine – you know how these things go.

For some time, the ASUG Annual Conference was held together with SAPPHIRE but in 2010 they would join forces with the event rebranded as SAPPHIRE NOW. The location remained the same: Orange County Convention Center in Orlando (US).

Until the mid 2010s, there was also an EMEA edition, co-hosted often with SAP TechEd and for some time also one in Japan (first edition 1996).

In 2019, SAPPHIRE NOW attracted 30,000 guests from over 100 countries.

For some interesting historical accounts, see Tom Pfister‘s blog posts.

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2021 – SAPPHIRE NOW

Like the year before, SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 was held exclusively online. Hot topics were Rise with SAP, SAP Business Network, and SAP Process Insights.

For news coverage and highlights, see

More stories on the SAP News Center (SAPPHIRE NOW topic).

 

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2020 – SAPPHIRE NOW REIMAGINED

In 2020, SAPPHIRE NOW was hosted online and not onsite for the first time.

For an complete list of all the announcements, download the guide (PDF)

For news coverage and highlights, see

More stories on the SAP News Center (SAPPHIRE NOW topic)

 

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2019 – Experience the Intelligent Enterprise

In 2019, SAPPHIRE NOW was celebrating its 30th birthday. Hot topics?

  • The $8 billion Qualtrics acquisition and the $1.6 trillion Experience Gap
  • SAP HANA Cloud Services and the 175 Exabytes Global Data Sphere
  • SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation
  • SAP Data Intelligence
  • Lady Gaga

For the news coverage, see

Experience the Intelligent Enterprise: Hasso Plattner at SAPPHIRE NOW 2019 Highlights

At SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP and Apple announced that CORE ML, Apple’s on-device machine learning technology, will be available for the first time as part of the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS.

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2018 – The Best-Run Business Make the World Run Better 

For the 2018 edition, the buzz was about the Intelligent Enterprise, SAP C/4HANA – the new CRM suite – and the customer experience.

Christian Klein presented “See How SAP Runs SAP and Discover SAP’s Strategy to Become an Intelligent Enterprise”

Some news coverage and impressions

In this highlight video from his #SAPPHIRENOW keynote, SAP CEO Bill McDermott outlined the strategy to create intelligent enterprises that can fuel economies, lift societies, and sustain our environment. Bill announced SAP C/4HANA, a unified suite of cloud-based solutions to modernize #CRM and manage the complete customer experience.

During his keynote address at #SAPPHIRENOW, SAP co-founder Prof. Hasso Plattner illustrated SAP’s vision for the intelligent enterprise as a system of integrated, open applications that enable exceptional agility, speed and innovation.

Quote/unquote: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Another year, another SAPPHIRE, another speech. 

SAPPHIRE NOW with Justin Timberlake

We’re THREE weeks away from #SAPPHIRENOW with Justin Timberlake! Are you ready?! Sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services: http://spr.ly/6009DgY5T

Gepostet von SAP am Donnerstag, 17. Mai 2018

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2017 – Run Live. Run Simple. 

SAPPHIRE NOW 2017 was all about SAP Leonardo with machine learning, blockchain, IoT, and about the an expanding Google partnership.

News coverage and impressions

Announcing Muse!

Muse is coming to Orlando! Don’t miss this evening event at SAPPHIRE NOW, presented by SAP & Tata Consultancy Services http://spr.ly/61878pUFt

Gepostet von SAP am Dienstag, 14. Februar 2017

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2016 – Live Business 

Hot topics for the SAPPHIRE 2016: Live Business, Empathy, the Spring Edition of the SAP HANA Cloud Platform, and Apple partnership.

One of the highlights of SAPPHIRE NOW 2016 was COO Christian Klein showcasing the Digital Boardroom.

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2015 – Run Simple

Quote/unquote: Arguably one of the most important enterprise software shows of the year, this year’s key theme was around “Run Simple.” “When businesses run simple you make life run simple. See businesses as intelligent seamless bodies – now that is beautiful, almost as beautiful as life itself,” SAP CEO, Bill McDermott, stated during his keynote.

Hot topics: S/4HANA, Internet-of-Things, SAP Digital, SAP Lumira, and the Business Network with Ariba, Fieldglass, and Concur (recent acquisition).

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For the author page of SAP PRESS, visit

Over the years, for the SAP HANA Academy, SAP’s Partner Innovation Lab, and à titre personnel, I have written a little over 300 posts here for the SAP Community. Some articles only reached a few readers. Others attracted quite a few more. For your reading pleasure and convenience, here is a curated list of posts which somehow managed to pass the 10k-view milestone and, as sign of current interest, still tickle the counters each month.

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