Yesterday, I quite enjoyed this Certification related Dilbert. Those who follow the Certification 5 output will know what I’m on about…

• Two Tribes: CIO’s Thomas Wailgum comments on the TomorrowNow saga, Vinnie Mirchandani expects more battles ahead.
• Dennis Moore sees SAP skills (amongst others) on the rise.
• Craig Cmehil announces Innovation Weekend @ SAP TechEd 2010
• come and hang out with some SAP geeks at SAP Inside Track Bangalore. The afternoon has some Certification 5 content, presented virtually by C5 members from all around the global.
• The C5 have also now launched a survey project, please forward this to all SAP related consultants you know. A link to the blog is here. The survey itself can be found here.
• Simplify SAP by culling custom code. As useful and valid this article is, I find that most of the client I work for already adhere or are aware of most of these points.
• if it wasn’t for anything else, we might remember the last few days as the week when “Google Wave waved good-bye”
• Uwe Fetzer aka @SE38 must have turned down all BBQ and pool party invites and wrote Twibap instead, the ABAP Twitter API. Excellent stuff!
• Helmuth Guembel (SAPience2010) with some critical remarks regarding SAP’s actions to prevent 3rd party support providers from making inroads.

No Twitter updates this week, folks…

A new month, a new SAP BusinessByDesign release. You’ll find some BYD News links amongst my SAP Land news catch.

• “Are CIOs too cosy with their vendors?”, asks CIO’s Thomas Wailgum. Why does there seem such a loyalty to vendors, even when things have not been going as well as expected?
• A perception is a perception is a perception. Survey by the SAP UK&I user group reveals that a large part (75%) of its customers are not happy with the speed with which SAP responded to SaaS offerings.
• SAP AG reports that IDC has reported that SAP is the market leader in the BI tools market.
• SAP Mentor Thorsten Franz reveals the “third way”: CRM WebUI for ERP 6 and Netweaver ABAP. Business Object aware goodness. Great stuff, Thorsten!
• SAP cooperates with Deutsche Post in eBrief (eLetter) projects. First initiatives will cover HCM payroll and public sector processes. (english version here)
• Gartner’s Thomas Otter chimes in with his thoughts on SAP results
• SAP TV: Snabe/McDermott interview now available online
• SAP personalises Netweaver Portal with Enterprise Workspace (engl version here)
• Indian offshorer HCL is looking for experienced german-speaking SAP consultants in order to increase its foothold in SAP’s home market (engl version here)
• Just in time: the Enterprise Geeks with the last installment on an Introduction to WDA (pt 7)
• Dennis Howlett comments on SAP’s release of ByDesign Feature Pack 2.5. Still strikes me as new to see price offerings from SAP like this (see the 3 starter packs), but it’s a taste of what’s to come in the not-too-distant future. See also my comment re SDK and partner add-ons, for more reading also see my recent post “ByDesign ? ByCommunity”.

And here comes Mr. T (with a bit of spice this week, me thinks…)

• ZiaYusuf: Delighted to announce that I have joined key #sap partner and talent management leader #nakisainc as Board Advisor http://bit.ly/cYLoRA
• jonerp: As per @thomas_jung at #sapitstl: SAP Business Suite is gradually being rewritten from SAP GUI to Web Dynpro ABAP.
• jonerp: Interesting piece by computerworlduk reporting SAP user survey on ByD and Saas http://dlvr.it/3BWWw but SHOCKED doesn’t mention # surveyed
• monkchips: @esjewett the sap enterprise workspaces page is not even funny. file under poor marketing. cc @jbecher @vlvl
• esjewett: Another misguided in-memory SAP marketing blog on SDN – http://bit.ly/93jTcm (The non in-memory stuff seems alright.)
• ewH: I am now being followed by @shortdumps – as an ABAPer, that is not a good omen
• thomas_jung: Just followed @shortdumps – if this account turns out to not be ABAP related, I don’t think I want to see the content they post.
• mprosceno: Nice recognition for SDN and the SAP Community Networks in the Washington Post… http://bit.ly/adewZZ

• SAP reports healthy increase in revenue year-on-year, but Dennis Howlett had an interesting look under the bonnet (“reports healthier”). Zacks think that “SAP underperforms”.
• SAP decides goes for Black Duck to rationalise its Open Source Software use for development efforts.
• Jon Reed with an interesting PAC post regarding SAP trends for IT Services firms.
• Michael Doane chimes in with views on Certification: “My long-held belief is that systems integrators, not individual consultants, should be held to a certification/ratings fire. To date, they are not. Most of them tend to claim “our clients love us” but it is readily evident that they are not talking to all of their clients.”
• Joshua Greenbaum with a follow-up on his ByDesign / SaaS related post from last week. Interestingly enough, he also sees the strong impetus the BYD SDK will have, although I miss the community aspect in all of the BYD posts I find. Also see my own post “ByDesign? ByCommunity!” on this.

Keep calm and tweet on…

• dahowlett: #SAP: SAPPHIRE got 50% more leads than 2009…interesting
• sapnews: SAP Reports 16% Growth in Software and Software-Related Service Revenues for the Second Quarter: http://bit.ly/bNdnRA
• yojibee: Wow, still videos on SDN only for IE? (the video was shot in 2008)
• chiprodgers: Getting very close to being able to announce the concerts for #SAPTechEd Las Vegas and Berlin. Excited! Stay tuned
• sap_star: today at client: Defect Meeting.Working Issue With Backup / Restore Not Working.Rewriting Code From Offshore Team.

SAP has also produced a cute little video explaining BYD in a nutshell, which is worthwhile sharing.

Despite the simplicity that is presented here, ERP pundits have always been in agreement over the fact that anything SaaS based represents a new ball game for the old-skool “Big ERP” players such as SAP and their partners. In my view, the last few weeks have put a little bit more flesh on the argumentative bone.

Dennis Howlett provides some great insights and thoughts in his worthwhile read on “So you want to be a saas Consultant ?”. Dennis points the spotlight on the consulting and implementation partners for solutions such as Netsuite and ByDesign. Where is the possibility for them to make money? With regards to saas deals for small and medium sized clients he writes:

The upside is that in a deal of this kind, there is every incentive to ensure client success because you’re into a recurring revenue stream for as along as the client remains onboard.

This view is very much reflected in an excellent interview Jon Reed did with Skyytek’s Ray Tetlow (listen from 2:20 onwards). Skyytek has been working in the saas field as implementation partner for a number of years now and has 1000+ completed projects under its belt. Skyytek has also been chosen as BYD partner.

Furthermore, Tetlow points out that in his view classical ERP implementation firms will struggle to enter the saas market due to shorter implementation lifecycles, which renders long presales activities obsolete. It’s what Joshua Greenbaum calls a “tectonic shift in the marketplace”. Moreover, Greenbaum points out:

How SAP’s partners will make the healthy margins they need to be in the game with SAP has been, in retrospect, a bigger problem than the technology issues that stymied ByD’s initial release. And, by the way, thinking that value-added partners – the smart, savvy ones SAP wants to have on board selling ByD – will be happy with a volume business won’t cut it. Smart and savvy won’t be interested in volume, IMO.

Going back to Jon’s interview with Ray Tetlow this makes sense, as it appears that low office footprint, virtual consulting and less face time is what Skyytek’s model is shifting towards. Whether this will also be valid for larger saas projects and bigger end clients remains to be seen. Dennis points towards the importance of skills when implementations are done on a larger user scale:

Here’s the kicker – larger saas implementations require a lot more than understanding a general ledger. You really need industry expertise in order to help clients move towards implementing best practices and processes. I’ve argued many times that practitioners have these skills – they just don’t necessarily know it. Now is the time to think this through and think about how and where you’ll start assembling teams. The likelihood is you’ll need to look outside your own walls.

Greenbaum diverts the saas-interested audience to another topic which especially in SAP BYD Land is going to hot up even further over the coming months: BYD enhancements and tooling.

The good news for SAP is that ByD will have an xRM-like development environment by year’s end, one that can theoretically tap into a richer palate of processes via ByD than xRM can via Dynamics CRM.

Expect long queues when SAP’s BYD SDK “ByDesign Studio” (now renamed from “Copernicus)” will be available for 4 hour hands-on sessions at this year’s TechEd. What we know so far is that ByDesign Studio will be based on Microsoft’s Visual Studio, C# and potentially SQL Server. Despite some noises from the developer community I think this was a good choice, as SAP is able to tap into a pool of millions of developers who can innovate and extend BYD to their heart’s content in a “partner layer”. It can be expected that these ByDesign Studio based add-ons will use web services to access the ABAP-OO based BYD cloud system and leverage BYD’s Silverlight UI.

Skyytek’s Ray Tetlow believes that only larger custom developments like for example a call center extension are best use cases for partner solutions. Smaller extensions like custom fields or table enhancements can be customised by implementation teams and with little effort.

But where are solution partners going to market their extensions and add-ons in order to tap into the long tail? A go to market strategy for this still remains to be seen and answers will hopefully be provided during this year’s TechEd. Excitement for ByDesign Studio could be significantly hampered if SAP misses out to provide clarity on this when presenting ByDesign Studio. This is especially important with regards to pricing, if SAP is planning to take a cut in a “BYD App Store”.

Moreover, it will be important for SAP to mobilise beyond the existing developer and BPX community it has today, of which a large part has little or no C# skills. You might think that SAP ERP core skills are not that relevant anymore in this new field and you would probably be right. However, if ByDesign Studio really leverages web services then everyone who has used SAP web services before is in an advantageous position.

In the long run, it can be expected that these skills will become commoditised, but for the next 3-5 years SAP is going to have to engage not only with their existing community, but also reach out even further to those Microsoft developers it will eventually need. Given the uphill climb it already has on the partner involvement side, it is not going to get any easier.

• European Commission approves SAP acquisition of Sybase
• interesting analysis by Panorama Consulting’s Eric Kimberling. He’s posted a functional comparison of SAP v Oracle. The two packages are closer together in customer evaluation than one thinks.
• Jarret Pazahanick with an interesting and popular SDN blog on Five Ways Twitter will Help your SAP Career – well spotted stuff. Many people still underestimate the power of Twitter in the professional space.
• SAP’s Craig Cmehil starts the TechEd Demo Jam Submission Countdown
• a funky and groovy ByDesign video by SAP to dazzle the masses
• CIO’s Thomas Wailgum sees SAP in danger to make the same mistakes with ByDesign as with TomorrowNow. He has a point, but have a look in the comments to see my view on it (apologies for the dreadful layout!).
• SAPience aka Helmuth Guembel fears a wave of custom-built enterprise “Tamagochis” on mobile devices.
• Enterprise IT veteran Joshua Greenbaum on “How to make money in the cloud (…)” says, “Smart and savvy won’t be interested in volume, IMO”. One interesting observation here is that he sees the BYD SDK as a clear advantage for BYD over competitor products.

some good ones in this week’s Twitter category, me thinks:

• thorstenster: Just parked on SAP’s board & CEO reserved spaces in front of WDF01. Security greeted me on my way to the door. Quick!
• thorstenster: @pixelbase Driving Larry and Hasso reminds me of the riddle where you row a wolf, a sheep, and a salad across the river. Larry’s the salad. (nb on the same topic!)
• se38: RT @martin_english: RT @micdoane: “Only two major industries, one of which is illegal, refer to their ultimate customers as users. “
• welshcathy: Interesting – just seen self referencing DDIC table type definition bring down an entire SAP system!
• SAPinsider: Today’s IT joke: A software engineer is smoking. When a lady points at the health warning, he replies, “We care about errors, not warnings!”

• Forrester’s John R Rymer sticks up for SAP – “SAP is good enough”.
• Silicon.de joins into Rymer’s tune by emphasising “SAP bleibt SAP” (“SAP remains SAP”). English translation here
• Jon Reed with an excellent podcast interview with Skyytek’s Ray Tetlow (download link), a SaaS Consulting Business and SAP ByDesign partner.
• Dennis Howlett with some food for thought for all those who want to be SaaS consultants. Dennis does a great job of reflecting on parts of the Netsuite/ByDesign/Salesforce consulting model. It means a new way of working and making dosh – on several levels.
• Reality Bites: Thomas Wailgum’s pledge for a more instrumental role of the CIO (rather than mopping up afterwards).
• SAP Me Sideways with what looks like a follow-up on the Confidence v Ignorance post the other day.
• Richard Hirsch with an insightful SDN blog on impacts of In-Memory Technology on Process Environments.
• Eric Kimberling’s comprehensive list of ERP lawsuits.

Between several Twitter downtimes, I managed to capture the following:

• dahowlett: This from @twailgum had me in fits of laughter: “SAP: The Big Made Easy” http://is.gd/dhFvR #sap
• thomas_jung: One of the more useful UI prompts I’ve seen: http://flic.kr/p/8gh3Mi
• jonerp: Wondering what’s next in the wacky story of the @SAP Twitter account, once possessed by a teenager with attitude…
• ConsultantBox: Why do many SAP consultants not want to work with SAP agents when searching for SAP jobs? http://nblo.gs/5CLmR
• ddav: Check out the SAP Uber Geek app now on the ‘new and noteworthy’ in iTunes store! http://bit.ly/cFcVdx http://twitpic.com/24x19b
• dparnas: RT @scottwambler: Certified #Scrum Master training = 16 hrs. Starbucks Barista training = 24+ hrs. #agile
  

Anyway, what have we got?

• Vinnie Mirchandani explains on Enterprise Irregulars how his new book The New Polymath has drawn on virtual communities in general and -for example- on SDN sources / SAP Mentors.
• SAP extends offer to acquire Sybase. As not all conditions for the merger are met, like the approval for the European Commission, there has got to be another 25 day review period by the EU. Nothing too serious there? Au contraire! “This is not something SAP needs right now”, says Enterprise Irregular Dennis Howlett.
• gingle posted a few “Full Monty” blogs on SDN with installation guides etc on popular SAP trials. A great resource from a mysterious man Down Under.
• SAP Me Sideways strikes again with a good piece on “Confidence vs Arrogance”, which very much resonates my own experiences in larger parts of SAP Land.
• about time: Angelika Dammann becomes SAP’s first female board member. (english version here. nb: translated second part of title is misleading)
• fellow mentor John Appleby explains “why the iPad is the most important sales tool since the cellphone“.
• a bit older, yet still worth mentioning is a silicon.de post re SAP’s ambitions to triple users by 2015. (english translation is here). Execution for the app strategy might still throw up the odd question mark and the next months need to provide more clarity with regards to this. One example will be the upcoming ByDesign SDK entitled Copernicus.

And here comes the Twitterverse:

• jonerp: There is such a thing as overthinking SAP career options. Hot skills chase – avoid. Passionate pursuit of excellence – that’s more like it
• vendorprisey: RT @hrportal: SAP Records Management is now called “SAP NetWeaver Folders Management”: . http://bit.ly/cxy4c9 >more renaming games???????
• openczun Hint : just because SAP says some functionality is supported, doesn’t mean it works.
• schucci @enterprisegeeks did anyone notice that “innojagd” is really an anagram for “ninja god”…must be Craig’s nickname.
• qmacro Overheard: “I can’t code anymore. I’m going to have to do Architecture” (!)

• Redmonk on Software AG’s global approach, giving it to us straight; interview with Dr Peter Kuerpick.
• fellow SAP mentor Sandy Kemsley is not happy and lets rip on Enterprise Collaboration. A very noteworthy and apt insight.
• Talking Bay Area, Crossroads, Sapphire and Crossroads Cafe: Mark Finnern interview with Anne Petteroe
• Jon Reed and Andy Klee interview each other on ASUG-SAPPHIRE Orlando 2010, SAP training trends, SAP certification, and other conference takeaways…
• Thomas Wailgum on a new TV series: “ERP Undercover”. I’d really like “ERP Vice”, but that’s me.
• ex-SAP Steve Mann hits hard with his criticism re SAP’s presence on Twitter.
• For the second time now, SAP Inside Track London didn’t disappoint. See here an initial wrap-up by Dennis Howlett and Martin Gillet’s Flickrstream.

selections from Twitter, not necessarily from the last 7 days.

• PuruGovind: I have shifted most of my SAP-context tweeting to SAP talk, our inhouse microblogging tool.
• dahowlett: Resetting my #sdn password for the 3rd time in as many days…..grrr…..

• SAP begins tender offer for Sybase. The deal is starting to take shape.
  
• a few days older, but still good: Thomas Otter with some interesting compairsons between ERP sofwtare and buying a (virtual) piano in “What buying a piano taught me ab out enterprise sofwtare“

Tweet, tweet, tweet….

• rhirsch: ROFL – my daughter just saw @dahowlett avatar and said “Look, there is Santa Claus” – if only she knew the truth
• twailgum: RT @pgreenbe: My post on SAP and SAPPHIRE goes up on ZDNET.http://bit.ly/cEUebn
• dparnas: RT @hkisker: New #Forrester blog: ‘SapphireNow 2010 – The Quest for Innovation’ #SapphireNow http://bit.ly/bIWVnD
• ccmehil: bit.ly/innojagd Game is on for those up to the challenge in the SAP ecosystem #Cinch: http://www.cinchcast.com/ccmehil/61544
• timoelliott: In Europe waiting for your iPad? There’s the first app you should download! (#SAP #BusinessObjects Explorer for iPad):

• numerous Sapphire wraps have been posted (including mine here, here and here). Those most noteworthy in my mind are the ones from (a very complimentary) Ray Wang, Vinnie Mirchandani, Dennis Howlett (note: also check Vinnie and Dennis’ latest after thoughts, now the “drugs have worn off”! follow their links), CIO.com and also the summaries on Craig Cmehil’s FMR for day1, day2 and day 3.
• more thoughts by Dennis Howlett on SAP’s SME SaaS offering Business By Design and its pricing. Dennis also mentions the SDK for BBD which is supposed to hit the community later in 2010. Generally there seems to be concerns around entry level for partners, infrastructure (what if SAP decides to outsource the hosting?) and pricing. Personally I would like to see a clearer strategy announcement from SAP around partnerships – hopefully this will be in place by the time the SDK is released.
• two excellent Enterprise Geeks podcasts around Agile and (of course) the Certification 5 and their efforts to move the needle on SAP Certification. Unfortunately I missed out with all the fun as 4/5 of the group gathered in Orlando.
• I can probably get away with mentioning Dennis Howlett a third time by pointing to his excellent blog on the Certification 5 experience with Bill McDermott. Goosebumps guaranteed!

and finally from the Twitterverse…

• DearingGroup: the # of times we’ve seen Sustainability in tweets from SapphireNow almost equals the amount of consultants it used to take to implement SAP
• bitterer: Bill McDermott looks, speaks, and acts like the other Bill. Clinton, that is. #sapphirenow
• rhirsch: RT @bitterer: Real real-time from SAP. Unreal. #sapphirenow >> now that is reality
• vendorprisey: just googling Virgin’s IT set up. Lots of Oracle, some SAP, some netsuite. #sapphirenow
• SAPProJournal: Must say this is the first time at an SAP conference that colonizing another planet had come up in the discussion. #SAPPHIRENOW
• njames: Ash #ash go away Go away and stay away I don’t care why I don’t care how I want to get to @sapphirenow
• dahowlett: All the smart people are in the lobby bar #sapohirenow (nb. couldn’t resist, Dennis!