There was something ominous in Sapphire not being spelled in all caps this year. Typically the grand sales event, it seemed subdued and even though SAP published a long list of news, there wasn’t technology or product news that particularly stood out. And the ho-hum online content felt like a “hybrid event done, boss” checkmark.
It was good to hear an acknowledgement that partnerships are important for SAP and I’d love to hear more about the next steps. Especially for the partners that are somewhere between The Big 4 and an edgy startup (for which SAP has yet another program). Also ASUG Annual conference was co-located with Sapphire, as usual, but it was barely even mentioned anywhere. Not sure what’s up with that.
The eye-rolling moments for me were the appearances of the “mobile executive dashboard” and AR/VR devices. The dashboard was interesting when it was first presented at TechEd around 2015, in full HANA glory. Now it’s also on mobile. OK, cool. And I think we should face the reality that people just don’t like wearing any AR/VR things for work. Let’s deliver solutions for devices that people actually use (laptops, cough).
Overall, if you took all the buzzwords and marketing speak from SAP Sapphire, it would be as short as The Sopranos with all the cursing edited out for broadcast TV. JP
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