SAP's new Business Suite 7 seems to be promising!!!

On Wednesday, SAP unveiled Business Suite 7 with a modular design in mind so that companies can pick and use what they want. Now companies can buy what exactly they want contrary to buying the whole suite for one module. It built around service oriented architecture (SOA) in order to offer more Web services, but it is not a SaaS(Software as a Service) model. Though SAP is offering SaaS via its Businees ByDesign for $149 per month, there is no significant momentum around it. Rival Salesforce.com is profitable with the same service for $49 per month, but SAP claims that even with $149 per month they can't be profitable. Salesforce.com is ahead in the game with PaaS(Platform as a Service), but SAP is behind with just SOA(Read my article Java in the Cloud to know more on SaaS, PaaS).

No more scary SAP upgrades
SAP Business Suite 7 is designed to ease upgrade process. SAP is known for its scary upgrades and sleepless nights for the IT during upgrades. With Business Suite 7, it is going to eliminate those headaches and going to reduce the IT costs significantly.

Why would you need SAP SI?
SAP is pumping a lot on the new Business Suite 7 and promising smooth implementations, ROI in less than a year under certain conditions. What happens if SAP’s easy upgrade actually works as SAP promised? Moreover if so why would you need a systems integrators –Accenture, PriceWaterhouse, IBM etc?

I couldn't believe that SAP is talking about Social Networking & Twitter!
SAP known as the enterprise software which is always step(s) behind adopting the new technologies. Now only SAP come up with SOA architecture which is widely adopted by many companies in 2004/2005. To my surprise, with Business Suite 7 - SAP implemented social networking features. During the announcement, they demonstrated the dashboard with Twitter integration. Not sure whether Enterprises want to use this functionality as Twitter is open! However, new startup Yammer(Twitter for companies, only company individuals can read the messages) may have room here if Enterprises want the Twitter like functionality. I think SAP is finally going in right direction. Right now social networking is the leading trend, and I am glad that SAP quickly adopted it and implemented it. Why I am not interested in SAP until now - because it is an old aged technology in my point of view!. Nevertheless, with Social networking integrations, my opinion on SAP is completely changed.

Netweaver meets Flex(Flash)
This week one of my friend mentioned that Netweaver even supports Flex. Wow, that's interesting.... how come a old aged software(Note: it is my opinion, no offense please :-)) supports new Flash technology? As it sounds more promising, I dug more details about it. As he said, it it true. Perhaps this posting on SDN(Make phone calls from SAP applications with Flash Islands and Ribbit) is interesting and even made me to explore Netweaver further. One might ask "why implement features we already have in WebEx/NetMeeting in a Netweaver application”? If you build the same in SAP, you will have a well defined integration path to the backend system, masterdata, transactional data and authorizations. Isn't it nice if you could display a snapshot of the latest sales figures in WebEx meeting? Also what about developing a multi user white board and discuss the sales progress in a Webcam, VoIP or chat session? Endless possibilities. What is going on? Am I the one using the word "Endless possibilities" with SAP?

SAP going hard with consultants
This week, the star of The Dark Knight(Batman) was captured on tape verbally assaulting a member of the crew. He even used an f-bomb and the news has spread far and wide around the Internet. It was harsh. Coming to SAP, during the launch of SAP Business Suite 7, co-CEO Leo Apotheker went harsh on lame consultants and said SAP is going to certify the people. In his words "I don’t give a shitt if it’s Accenture or IBM. I care about the customer. I find it shocking people are walking around talking to customers and have no experience on SAP. Consultants get hired of people and have no clue. It’s annoying but that’s a fact. Let’s start by certifying people. If we believe a project takes 500 days and another partner says it’s 5,000 days I’ll do it for 500 and a fixed fee". SAP is giving strong message to the customers to ecnourage certified consultants. So SAP consultants, be prepare for the certifications!