"Everything That Has a Beginning Has An End"...opinion about Shai departure

[Former Member]

I don't know how many ages had SAP before now, but one thing we have to agree, a new "post Shai" age is beginning, what do you think about that?

[Former Member]

comment to this blog

/people/community.user/blog/2007/04/03/the-sky-is-not-falling

Hi Rick,

I had a hard work finding the message in your blog.

The sky are not crying because Shai is gone....but...even if SAP finishes existing the sky is not going to cry...and believe me, to all that people working at field does not matter who is the CEO of SAP...or if tomorrow we have to use Oracle NetWeaver or Microsoft NetWeaver.

BTW you say that there is some kind of press exaggeration about Shai departure...mmmm...I don't think so...In one month everybody are going to forget it.

Regards,

Ignacio.

[Former Member]

when I hear Peter Zencke talk about SAP and their products I do trust that company for it's solidity. Solidly.

But when I heard Shai Agassi talk of that same company and their products it simply appeared sexy to me, if you know what I mean. One had a feeling of innoviation and dynamics filling the air. Together with his oh so solid colleagues of the board this gave an all around nice image of a company both solid and innovative.

I think this cool image will get lost. I think a board of elder gentlemen(men only!) almost all working for one and the same company for more than 20 years will meet the expectations of a certain clientele but miss the expectations of a whole lot of others.

but we'll see soon at the SAPPHIREs I suppose.

anton

[Former Member]

From a technology standpoint, big loss for Netweaver especially the Java side of Netweaver.

From a product standpoint, not anything special as the market reality clearly states the preference to good old R3 no matter how much new product innovation was produced by SAP besides R3 and mySAP ERP

From a leadership standpoint, great loss.

From a business standpoint, if Netweaver doesn't pick up big trouble for SAP as the hope for growth was dependent on it.

Bottom line, SAP has to find a way to make Netweaver as technology platform and its ecosystem a success. And who could do it better if not Shai, its prominent incubator and sponsor. Well good luck to Klaus Kreplin (head of Netweaver) and Zia Zusuf (head of partners and ecosystem)!

[former_member181923]

Andre - as I've said before, SAP has to take folks to WDA and WDJ/VC/CAF thru workflow - it's the only strategy that will let folks feel comfortable getting from 4.x to where SAP wants them to be ...

So we agree in "spirit", I think, if not in "letter".

Regards

djh

[Former Member]

Oh I forgot to mention from a region/geography standpoint, big loss for America and Palo Alto. Having a board member in Palo Alto transformed that location from what was a nice work location for an SAP Labs to a power center at SAP. As an SAP partner in the US, it's so much easier to go to Palo Alto than Walldorf. Hopefully decision making related to technology and partner activities will still happen in Palo Alto. Flying to Frankfurt, that I can take but driving and staying in Walldorf that's a little harder to digest (compared to the Bay Area, i mean).

[Former Member]

I am in total shock after reading this news. I have a portal background, working with portals since mysap workplace days and I have followed the story of Shai within SAP from day 1 with interest and hope. We have seen the transformation of not only SAP products but also culture during those Shai years and I am very pessimistic that things will not continue to move forward, atleast on the culture side, but on the technology side things will develop slower now that Shai is gone. We need another outside Wunderkind, non German (with all due respect for Germans) to carry the flag of the dynamic, cutting edge and open movement that Shai was the icon for. Hope he will be hired or promoted within the coming weeks.

[Former Member]

Agree with Bjorn.

Shai had a nice technology momentum. Whole community lost a such a nice front man.

I can't beleive he is out of this now .....

Please note that I never worked with him anyhow, but it would be nice to know what was internal/political reason to give up. He didn't look like kind of person who would easy walk away. The story about "electric cars future" doesn't keep the water to me.

[Former Member]

"From a product standpoint, not anything special as the market reality clearly states the preference to good old R3 no matter how much new product innovation was produced by SAP besides R3 and mySAP ERP"

The problem with something like XI was that SAP were fairly late to market, and had been partnering with their rivals for years. You can't blame firms clunking along on ITS and IBM Websphere for wanting some return on their initial investment. No-one was going to embark on a replacement project purely because SAP had finally produced their own integration product.

[former_member181923]

Well, the only thing the shareholders ever want to know is "What have you done for me lately?" So this news is not entirely unexpected.

I think the main change will be a greater emphasis on some reasonable balance between SAP's core competency in businss application software and the kinds of newer competencies in "bling software" that SAP has been trying to develop.

As was reported in the SDN blogs a while ago, something like 80% of SAP's customers run 4.6c, and SAP therefore needs a business strategy that takes advantage of this fact, i.e. a strategy that is based on something other than wishful thinking that the dinosaurs who make up this 4.6c majority will somehow get drowned in the flood of thousand of brand-new customers rushing to buy NW200xy.

Was Shai Agassi the guy to deliver such a reality-grounded business strategy?

Not likely - too interested in what is trendy, e.g. his proclaimed interest in energy-related issues, blah blah blah.

Do you think I'm reading the situation wrong? Wait and see.

[Former Member]

David,

I don't come from the "classical" SAP world, I mean I was developing web sites at 90's and in the 1998 year I take my first SAP implementation connecting and external application to SAP R/3, and I was doing it by a few years, using other applications and external non SAP tools to expand the R/3 functionality.

SAP NetWeaver was a revolution...first time we began to use SAP tools to expand the R/3 (now mySAP ERP) functionality using first class web tools and that to me began the "modern" SAP age. In this context Shai was the One.

Not only by developers...In partners or customers nobody knows the other executive board members, even nobody knows the name of the SAP founders...but...Everybody knows Shai ! To people in this new modern SAP age Shai is like a founder, I personally think that he had a lot of thing to contribute to the ecosystem and the community and It is a grief his departure.

Thanks, Ignacio.