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        <title>ZDNet Blogs</title>
        <link>http://blogs.zdnet.com</link>
        <description>ZDNet Blogs Focus: SAP</description>
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<title>Combining SAP and BusinessObjects</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=193</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:29:04 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=193</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Henning Kagermann, CEO of SAP and John Schwartz, CEO of BusinessObjects today parried questions about SAPs proposed acquisition of BusinessObjects but as always we are left with open questions. The most significant part of the discussion cut across several questions Larry Dignan left hanging in the wind earlier today:    Can SAP digest a large acquisition?    The short answer is yes - by leaving BusinessObjects as a stand alone unit SAP is less likely to experience some of the digestion issues that are rumored to have plagued Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion. I hear for example that Hyperion folk find Oracle doesn't necessarily understand its business as well as they would like. However, the deal limits the opportunity for cost saving synergies. No-one I ... ]]>
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<title>Five questions: SAP's acquisition of Business Objects</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6541</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:02:03 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Larry Dignan</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6541</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP took a rather big plunge with its $6.8 billion acquisition of Business Objects and left the business intelligence market much smaller than it was a day ago.   Here are some lingering questions that remain to be resolved:  Can SAP digest a large acquisition? Business Objects is SAP's largest acquisition (Techmeme, statement) and represents a sea change since the ERP giant has touted its organic growth in recent years relative to Oracle's acquisition strategy. As a result, SAP is untested when it comes to integrating big deals. Business Objects will run as a separate unit, but it's hard to believe that situation will last indefinitely. Part of SAP's calculus with the Business Objects deal is to stay within the EU--that plan ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's acquiring Business Objects: 1st take</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=192</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 07 Oct 2007 06:57:19 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=192</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP's proposed acquisition of Business Objects is an interesting move on a number of fronts:     It provides a fresh route to achieving the 100,000 customer target that Leo Apotheker has previously described as 'aspirational.' While there is significant overlap, BusinessObjects' 44,000 customers as a top line number is impressive.   Both companies are EU based. This solves one of SAPs acquisition problems of managing across dispersed geographies.   BusinessObjects has a strong footprint in the medium sized business segment. This acquisition allows SAP a relatively easy entry route to expand its own footprint in what analysts consider one of the hottest parts of the market.   There is a good cultural fit. France and Germany are historically strong trading partners. Further evidence comes from the fact that ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's growth spurt: $6.8 billion for Business Objects</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6530</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 07 Oct 2007 04:32:26 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dan Farber</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6530</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP took a page out of Oracle's grow-by-consolidation playbook in acquiring business intelligence leader Business Objects for $6.8 billion (42 Euros per share). SAP CEO Henning Kagermann positioned the acquisition as part of his company's strategy to rapidly grow its customer base. SAP wants to have 100,000 customers by 2010, more than doubling from its current base of about 41,200.    The forthcoming Business ByDesign is also part of the growth strategy, targeting the lower part of the mid-market, with 25 to 100 users of the software per customer. Business Objects has more than 40,000 customers, but there is some overlap between the two companies in terms of shared customers and SAP's own analytics software geared for its platform. In March, Oracle ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's Peter Zencke: Inside Business ByDesign</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6492</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:10:21 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dan Farber</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6492</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Peter Zencke, a member of SAP   s Executive Board and head of R&D, spent the last fours years developing Business ByDesign,  a new foundation for SAP's ERP software. I caught up with him during SAP TechEd    07 and asked about the origins of the product and what will differentiate it in the marketplace.  (See earlier coverage of Zencke's TechEd '07 keynote and more SAP coverage here.)    DF: What was the genesis behind Business ByDesign?    PZ: "Four years ago, in 2003--exactly 10 years after R3 was introduced--we decided to go for new architecture, which we called "Ether" and then later "Enterprise SOA."  The first year we were figuring out how to do enterprise SOA. We built a prototype but decided not ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's parallel approaches to ERP</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6478</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:34:02 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dan Farber</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6478</guid>
<description><![CDATA[During his presentation at SAP TechEd '07, Peter Zencke, a member of SAP's Executive Board and head of R&D, made it clear to the 6,000 SAP developers in attendance that the forthcoming Business ByDesign ERP suite for the mid-market is technological milestone for the company. "We put everything into one, NetWeaver end-to-end," he said regarding Business ByDesign. "It's a very dense package that can run on one blade and it can support multiple tenants." SAP hopes to gain 10x faster adoption and 10x lower cost over existing solutions with Business ByDesign.    More importantly, features built into Business ByDesign will migrate to other SAP products, including the SAP Business Suite. "Business ByDesign will offer new business capabilities not in the Business Suite," ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's Business ByDesign go to market</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=186</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Oct 2007 07:53:45 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=186</guid>
<description><![CDATA[One of the niggling questions about SAP's Business ByDesign is just how the heck it is going to reach the numbers it says it wants to achieve. 10,000 new customers a year by 2010, many coming from this market, is ambitious. To date, SAP has been fuzzy about how that will work. Brian Sommer, one of my Irregular colleagues doesn't think it's as hard as some of us believe. In a new report entitled: The Market for SAP Business ByDesign, Brian argues that:  For almost a decade, the Software Intelligence unit within Accenture (nee Andersen Consulting) studied the application software marketplace annual replacement rate.  Much of this analysis covered the years 1988-1998.  The conclusions from this work were quite ... ]]>
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<title>O'Reilly talks turning IT inside out and data lock-in at SAP TechEd</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6469</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:37:24 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dan Farber</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6469</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP's TechEd '07 got off to glitzy start in Las Vegas as the pied piper of Web 2.0 Tim O'Reilly told the crowd of about 6,000 NetWeaver, Java, ABAP, ERP developers about the design patterns and business models for the next generation of software (hint, it's not on premises client/server applications).    O'Reilly reprised his theory and history of Web 2.o for the SAP crowd. The glitz was O'Reilly's statement that the goal of Web 2.0 should be to turn IT inside out. He described the new, Web 2.0 programming paradigm as moving back office processes and data into real-time user-facing applications. "Web 2.0 is about turning IT inside out. The data is the Intel inside. Interaction is data," O'Reilly said.    Just as ... ]]>
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<title>Will SAP Business ByDesign have AJAX goodness?</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=185</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:44:22 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=185</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The most disappointing aspect of SAPs Business ByDesign launch was the boring interface and lack of AJAX. For several of us, this was an opportunity missed. At the time, James Governor said:  The UI represents a missed opportunity, in my opinion and shows how SAP   s Not Invented Here approach can cause problems for the firm. I kept wondering where is the real AJAXy goodness? Hitting F5 repeatedly is hardly the key to few clicks.    I was surprised to see a search for a particular report require the user to hit the search button. Why not just have interaction between front and back end, and pop up the report names as the user types?  Today, the story has changed. At SAP TechEd Community ... ]]>
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<title>NetSuite nightmares</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=182</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:32:12 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=182</guid>
<description><![CDATA[One of the presumptions about SAPs entry to the mid-market on-demand scene with Business ByDesign is that NetSuite will benefit from the halo effect. I'm not so sure. Over the last year, I've heard vague negative mutterings about NetSuite in the UK. Most of the complaints concerned performance and upgrade issues. I ignored these background noises until now. I had no real evidence that they were anything more than the usual gossipy grumblings one hears around application implementation.    That changed this week when a reader on my AccMan blog requested broad recommendations for integrated on-demand applications that include accounting and customer management elements. This company is a three year NetSuite user. They've had enough.  That's serious for any company because ... ]]>
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<title>Oracle vs SAP gets trial date</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6407</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:48:24 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Larry Dignan</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6407</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A judge has set a trial date for Oracle's corporate theft lawsuit against SAP: Feb. 9, 2009.   The trial date was disclosed by SAP. SAP indicated that the company and Oracle met with Judge Martin Jenkins of the Northern District Court in San Francisco to go over case management.   Jenkins discussed scheduling, the process around discovery for evidence and alternative dispute resolution. For a quick recap:  In March, Oracle sued SAP alleging corporate theft on a grand scale accusing SAP's TomorrowNow unit of stealing intellectual property. SAP responded in July and admitted some of the allegations but shot down most of them.  In August, SAP argued for alternative resolution and urged the judge to speed the case up. ... ]]>
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<title>Business ByDesign: the partnering opportunity</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=179</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Sep 2007 08:48:39 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=179</guid>
<description><![CDATA[As the excitement around Business ByDesign dies down, the questions start flowing. While at the event, Brian Sommer and Charlie Wood asked Leo Apotheker two of the most intriguing questions centering on the partnering opportunity.    Brian has decades experience as a SAP partner during his Accenture days and has undertaken extensive research into this aspect of the IT industry. He questioned SAPs ability to realistically build a volume model for the mid market:  The mid-market channel struggles to hire the best graduates so I'm wondering how SAP will build a market that can be truly effective?  Apotheker's response provided a revealing insight into how SAP plans to build out the BBD market (paraphrased and rearranged for context):  When you study the economics of the ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's challenge to NetSuite, Workday and salesforce.com</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6327</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:46:13 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dan Farber</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6327</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This week SAP finally introduced its on demand Business ByDesign suite, aimed at the mid-market (companies with 100 to 500 employees) and starting at $149 per per month per user but with a $54 a month option for a set of five users with limited usage of the software.    It  appears to be the initial step in a decade-long transformation of SAP's ERP offerings across all market segments and verticals. [Check out coverage and analysis from Dennis Howlett, Michael Krigsman, Larry Dignan and Josh Greenbaum on the launch of Business ByDesign.]    SAP CEO Henning Kagermann said Business ByDesign was "most important announcement I   ve made in my career." Given he has been at SAP since 1982 and joined the company's Executive Board ... ]]>
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<title>Business ByDesign: an Irregular verdict</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=173</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:27:10 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=173</guid>
<description><![CDATA[After a long day and intense series of discussions with SAP executives, the Enterprise Irregulars parsed immediate impressions of Business ByDesign. The general mood was one of quiet approval for a product set that is, as the company claims, a complete on-demand offering. Our generally positive view was however tempered with criticism. As a reminder, Jason Wood sets out the top level modules:     Compliance Management    Executive Management Support    Financial Management    Customer Relationship Management    Supplier Relationship Management    Project Management    Supply Chain Management    HR Management    Hidden from the end user view is a wealth of configurable options. On the day, SAP chose to show us a few of the CRM and HR related functions. They also showed the underlying process maps. Impressively complex was ... ]]>
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<title>SAP's 100,000 customers by 2010: 'aspirational'</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=175</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:27:50 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dennis Howlett</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=175</guid>
<description><![CDATA[During the launch of Business ByDesign, SAP said that it expects to achieve a run rate of adding 10,000 BBD customers a year by 2010. This raised questions about whether SAP will reach its previously stated target of 100,000 customers by 2010. I was concerned because it was always my understanding that BBD would be the engine for absolute unit number growth, even if that target seemed ambitious. With that in mind, I asked Leo Apotheker, SAP board member and head of sales to help clear up what I see as a confusing set of messages.    Apotheker claims that BusinessOne, it's small business offering could achieve 15,000 customer deals a year and that it would be a mistake to assume that ... ]]>
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<title>SAP Business ByDesign: will it reduce project failures?</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=402</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:05:10 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Michael Krigsman</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=402</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP's new Business ByDesign (formerly called A1S) software as a service (SaaS) offering represents a substantial departure from previous SAP products. What are the implications  of Business ByDesign on deployment and implementation; in other words, will this new product reduce implementation failures?    To answer this question, let's examine Business ByDesign from the perspective of four issues that often drive success or failure on IT projects:    1. User interface    Writing on this issue, ZDNet's executive editor, Larry Dignan, commented:  [SAP's CEO Henning] Kagermann said SAP didn   t impose any design limitations.    From the beginning we designed it for end to end processes with a user interface people can tailor depending on roles and responsibilities,    said Kagerman.  Good start so far. Business ByDesign was planned from the ... ]]>
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<title>SAP Business ByDesign: the &quot;feel good factor&quot;</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=401</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:12:24 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Michael Krigsman</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=401</guid>
<description><![CDATA[At the SAP Business ByDesign launch event press conference, I submitted the following question via email:     Please describe the importance of the new user interface for this particular product. Was the design process different from previous SAP development efforts?     The short answer is the development process was different, based on experience gained in developing SAP Solution Manager. At the same time, the SAP Palo Alto office developed careful user interface style guides and standards to be used consistently throughout the application.    Although the web broadcast was fuzzy, and I could not easily see the screens, it's clear SAP has focused on a key aspect of the new Business ByDesign software. Regardless of features, the workflow and user interface are absolutely critical components to ... ]]>
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<title>SAP Business ByDesign: Why one customer bought</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=400</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:41:03 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Michael Krigsman</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=400</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP Business ByDesign has been rolled out to a number of test customers. Several of these early adopters,  including light airplane manufacturer, Stemme AG, were interviewed during the press conference where Business ByDesign was launched. Stemme AG's reason for being a test customer: SAP an SAP executive bought one of their aircraft.    Yes, it was joke, but sometimes jokes are based on a grain of the truth. ]]>
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<title>SAP Business ByDesign: buzzwords don't matter</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=399</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:19:52 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Michael Krigsman</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=399</guid>
<description><![CDATA[During the SAP Business ByDesign press conference, SAP used terms such as "mashup" in an apparent attempt to jump on the Enterprise 2.0 jargon bandwagon.    Business ByDesign is an impressive system, however it must stand on it's own merits. I urge SAP to keep everything simple, including the language. Pandering to jargon will not help SAP convince small business owners to trust their companies to this new solution.    On the other hand, deep commitment and understanding to small business issues need are keys to success in this new market. ]]>
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<title>SAP Business ByDesign: first analysis</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=398</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:02:48 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Michael Krigsman</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=398</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAP's new A1S offering, formally called Business ByDesign, is intended for companies between 100-500 employees, which do not have deep vertical market software requirements. SAP believes this $15 billion market will help SAP dramatically expand its business over the coming years.    The product is the result of four years development, involving over 1000 SAP employees. It's intended to help customers simplify their IT operations. Peter Zencke, SAP Executive Board member, said Business ByDesign is not an ERP solution, and is not based on ERP. Rather, it is a single system to help small companies run their business across the following areas:     Financial management   Operations   People management    The solution extends software integration across the enterprise for small  SAP customers, and is not limited to specific ... ]]>
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