Drawing by an 11 year old son of a norwegian SAP employee

Experts, Analysts and ERP pundits are still recovering from the top-level management changes that SAP announced over the course of the last 10 days. Triggered by this, there has been noticeable noise around the notion of SAP as an acquisition target. No one seems to remember that SAP once was in a similar situation.

During the Dotcom boom SAP was relegated to the bottom of analysts’ short lists. Walldorf didn’t have an answer for the pundits back then either. For the latter, ERP was very yesteryear and regarded as obsolete. They claimed it was stuck in the “old age” of doing business, all bricks & mortar, not enough “New Economy”. Even the belated introduction of the Internet Transaction Server (ITS) left the IT journaille unmoved. “Too little, too late”, they moaned.

However economic history taught the dotcom whippersnappers a lesson and the german software concern had the last laugh – and the bigger financial breath. Hasso et al rubbed it in: It was at Sapphire 2001 in Lisbon where SAP played a keynote video in which a father and his son walked through an IT museum of the future. Stopping in front of a massive pile of old PCs, monitors and keyboards the father explained (in a very tongue-in-cheek way) that this is what was left of the dotcom bubble – and that only the stronger players survived. Hasso and his team were thoroughly enjoying this moment, giving a 90 minute keynote during which he slated those who doubted the power behind SAP. The boys were back in town.

Right now, there is a similar atmosphere of underestimation. Back then, Hasso kept the software giant on a steady course. There is no reason why he shouldn’t do that again.