SAP’One Unified Development Organization

 Corporate Topics, Innovation, News, Technology  No Responses »
May 242013
 

SAP announced today that it will create a single development organization for existing and new products, drive a cloud-first approach for the development of line-of-business applications, increase SAP’s leadership in mobile and further accelerate the company’s go-to-market for cloud and the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service.

In a nut shell here are the changes in management:

  1. All SAP development and custom development efforts will be managed by Vishal Sikka (@vsikka), member of the executive board, Technology & Innovation.
  2. Bernd Leukert (@leukertb), EVP for application innovation has been nominated to the global managing board.  Bernd will strength SAP’s global development organization reporting Vishal Sikka.
  3. SAP Executive Board Member Gerhard Oswald will take responsibility for a new scale, quality and support board area. Oswald will be responsible for the operations of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. Oswald will continue to be responsible for the SAP Active Global Support organization, the SAP Labs network (jointly with Sikka) and Solution and Knowledge Packaging.
  4. Lars Dalgaard will step down from the Executive Board and leave the company to become an investor. He will continue to play an active role as an advisor to the SAP Cloud business and will stay closely involved in the future development of SAP’s cloud strategy.
  5. SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe (@jim_snabe) will become Executive Board sponsors for SAP’s cloud business.
  6. SAP will consolidate its cloud go-to-market under the leadership of Bob Calderoni , CEO of Ariba, an SAP company, president of Global Cloud Operations and member of the Global Managing Board of SAP AG. Bob will continue to lead the Ariba business network activities.
  7. Luisa Delgado, member of the Executive Board, Human Resources, and Labor Relations Director, has decided to leave SAP.
  8. SAP Executive Board Member Werner Brandt will take on the Executive Board responsibility for Human Resources and become the Labor Relations Director in Germany in addition to his role as chief financial officer.
  9. Luka Mucic will become head of Finance to support Brandt in his expanded responsibilities. The Executive Board has nominated Mucic to the Global Managing Board.

Watch a webcast about the announcement (webcast will be available by May 25 at 8:00am ET).

Read full press release.

SAP Recruits People with Autism for Tech-Oriented Jobs

 Corporate Topics, News, Technology  No Responses »
May 222013
 

A story getting a lot of press is from a recent announcement that SAP will employ 1% of its workforce with people affected by autism by 2020.

The autistic employees will be hired to be software testers, programmers and data quality assurance specialists.  SAP will work with Specialisterne to find and hire the new employees.  Specialisterne is an internationally recognized leader in harnessing the talents of people with autism to work in technology-oriented jobs.

SAP sees the potential to leverage the unique talents of people with autism, while also helping them to secure meaningful employment. It is estimated that one percent of the world’s population is affected by autism (Autism Spectrum Disorder).

The project has successfully piloted in India and Ireland. SAP Labs India hired six people with autism as software testers for SAP Business Suite applications. As a result, the team has increased their productivity and cohesiveness in key areas. The Ireland pilot is currently completing the screening phase for five positions to be filled this year. SAP will expand the program globally, starting in the U.S., Canada and Germany in 2013.

Learn more through the following links:

 

Day 3 @SAPPHIRENOW – HANA DAY!

 Analytics, Business Suite, Cloud, Corporate Topics, Ecosystem, Events, HANA, News, Technology  No Responses »
May 162013
 

Last day for SAPPHIRE NOW 2013.  Hasso’s spent his time on stage debunking many myths about HANA and brought students from the HASSO Plattner Institute to share the applications they built on SAP HANA.  With little time left Vishal announced SAP’s new UI, SAP Fiori. The man behind SAP Fiori, Sam Yen provided a demo. Vishal continued his keynote by announcing the news below.

1) Enhancements to SAP HANA

HEADLINE: SAP Expands Big Data Offerings on the Open SAP HANA Platform

Enhancements include:

  • New SAP HANA smart data to help enterprises derive real-time insights across heterogeneous sources such as Hadoop.
  • New in-memory spatial capabilities in SAP HANA will help businesses uncover richer and meaningful signals from business and geospatial data.
  • Expanded SAP HANA One service will help customers and independent software vendors (ISVs) accelerate their time to value through flexible cloud deployment models.
  • The completion of the integration of Sybase data management with SAP HANA.
  • In-memory based intelligent data virtualization technology to simplify data queries across heterogeneous sources while ensuring optimal response time.
  • Expanded SAP HANA Open initiative provides customers the flexibility of choice to deploy HANA with tailored integration into their existing network storage infrastructure.
  • Expansion of HANA’s advanced in-memory text mining capabilities for popular international languages.

 

2) More Tools to Help Partners  Sell, Build & Market SAP HANA

HEADLINE: SAP Energizes Its Ecosystem With the Power of SAP HANA, Driving Growth Opportunities AND Accelerating Innovation for Customers

Tools and support for SAP HANA are opening up new sales, service and business opportunities for the entire partner ecosystem, providing amazing benefits to customers.

 

3) HP & SAP Prototype System @SAPPHIRENOW

HEADLINE: HP and SAP Advance SAP HANA Through Joint Innovation

  • HP & SAP prototypes a system to improve business processes and mitigate risks for customers based on SAP HANA for SAP Business Suite.
  • Prototype is the result of an SAP and HP initiative called, “project kraken“.  Project kraken’s goal is to provide customers additional choice in scalability for large, online transaction processing applications, with requirements for real-time analytical insights into this data. This will allows organizations another alternative to quickly detect patterns, analyze massive data volumes on the fly, and perform their operations quickly.
  • The 12 Terabyte Prototype System is based on HP x86 server technologies and optimized with the in-memory SAP HANA database for SAP Business Suite.

 

4) Advancements to SAP Business Intelligence 4.1 

HEADLINE: Business Intelligence Innovations from SAP Unlock the Power of Data for Real-Time Insights and Optimized Decision-Making

Features will be:

  • Unified and highly personalized platform with improved interoperability and usability across the BI suite.
  • Powerful visualizations, including SAP Lumira software, that will provide end users with industry-focused visualizations and spatial analytics.
  • New SAP Crystal Server software and the Edge edition of SAP BusinessObjects BI software for small & midsize companies.

SAPPHIRE NOW – Day Two Announcements

 Analytics, Business Suite, ByD, Cloud, Corporate Topics, HANA, News, SME, Sustainability, Technology  No Responses »
May 152013
 

Day two of SAPPHIRE opened with Jim Hagemann Snabe’s keynote hitting upon SAP Business Suite on HANA, SAP new cloud offerings and announcing SAP’s new user experience apps.  All of this and making reference to how SAP solutions are helping its customers be more sustainable.

SAP released four new announcements:

1) New Cloud Solutions

HEADLINE: SAP Unveils Comprehensive Portfolio of Business Applications in the Cloud

a) SuccessFactors BizX Suite includes:

  • SuccessFactors Employee Central: Expanding global capabilities and addressing local business needs in 29 new countries, now there are 51 country versions.
  • SuccessFactors Onboarding: The solution provides step-by-step guidance for the hiring manager, socialization capabilities and rich employee profile functionality.
  • SuccessFactors Learning: Has a redesigned learning homepage featuring customizable tile-based user interface with content tiles, thumbnail images and course descriptions and a combined catalog search.

b) SAP Cloud for Customer are cloud solutions for marketing, sales and service organizations, solutions include:

c) SAP Cloud for Financials offers new global, mobile and integration capabilities

d) SAP Cloud for Travel helps with expense management with simplified reporting and new analytics

e) SAP Business ByDesign now has more functionality for professional services, distribution and subsidiaries

f) Ariba Cloud Applications updated to provide driving new levels of productivity and profits

 

2) SAP Fiori (Italian word meaning Flower) is SAP’s new user experience

HEADLINE: SAP Fiori Simplifies the Enterprise Software Experience on Any Device With Consumer-Style Apps

  • SAP Fiori is a collection of apps with a simple and easy to use experience for frequently used SAP software functions that work across devices
  • SAP Fiori was shipped as beta release to over 10 early adopter customers that provided a very positive feedback on the entire experience using SAP Fiori
  • This the first release focusing on renewing the most broadly and frequently used SAP functions by simplifying and modernizing their user experience
  • SAP Fiori time sheet approval demo

 

3) SAP Business Suite on HANA is Generally Available!!

HEADLINE: SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA Now Generally Available; Core SAP Applications and Industry Solutions Now Real-Time

 

4) SAP Business One v9.0 Generally Available

HEADLINE: New Version of SAP Business One Application Helps to Realize Efficient Business Processes in Real Time

a) New version of SAP Business One offers more than 50 new and enhanced features, including:

  • Now integrated with the Ariba Network
  • Central location for implementation and configuration tools
  • New integrated development environments for partners, consultants and customer IT employees

b) New version of SAP Business One for SAP HANA includes:

  • Easier add-on development for partners
  • New and enhanced business processes
  • Real-time reporting and analytics with pervasive analytics

 

SAPPHIRE NOW – Day 1 Announcements

 Analytics, Cloud, HANA, Mobility, News, On Demand, Technology  No Responses »
May 142013
 

The first day of the 25th SAPPHIRE NOW kicked-off with keynotes from co-CEO Bill McDermott and Bob Calderoni, CEO of Ariba.

Four announcements crossed the wires, here is a summary of each:

1) SAP’s Cloud Strategy:

HEADLINE: SAP Unifies Cloud Portfolio on One Real-Time Platform for Faster, Smarter, Simpler Business

  • SAP has announced its unified vision and strategy for its entire portfolio of cloud and cloud-based solutions including applications, services, marketplace and business networks
  • The SAP HANA Cloud Platform will serve as the foundation for SAP’s full cloud portfolio, combining SAP’s enterprise solutions with the simplicity of cloud
  • For customers this means they will have the flexibility and choice they need to innovate for growth across their entire business, in the cloud

2) SAP Solutions for the Sports & Entertainment Industry:

HEADLINE: SAP’s Got Game: Technology to Reshape the Sports and Entertainment Industry

SAP announced new solutions for the sports & entertainment industry:

nba stats

3) Mobile Security

HEADLINE: New SAP Mobile Secure Portfolio Unifies Security and Management of Devices, Apps and Content

  • New solution portfolio, The SAP Mobile Secure portfolio to provide customers with security for their mobile devices
  • SAP Afaria, cloud edition, provides enterprises with complete SaaS-based mobile device management capabilities as well as business analytics

4) SAP Partners with Mocana

HEADLINE: SAP Partners With Mocana to Provide Best-in-Class Mobile Application Management Solution to Customers Globally

  • SAP has partnered with Mocana to resell the leading mobile security product Mocana Mobile App Protection (MAP)
  • The solution allows customers to benefit from the ability to quickly add fine-grained usage and security policies to iOS and Android apps without having to write any code
  • The partnership is expected to help customers expedite deployment of secure mobile apps

 

SAP Lumira Brightens Business Intelligence & Analytics

 Analytics, News, Technology  No Responses »
May 132013
 

SAP Visual Intelligence has been renamed to SAP Lumira.

What is nice to know is that there was a purpose to the change. SAP’s BI guru Tim Elliot explains the purpose of the change in a blog post and captures what everyone is thinking, SAP Lumira: Why Did We Change Yet Another Perfectly Good BI Product Name?

What could have been missed in the re-branding announcement is that SAP Visual Intelligence (now SAP Lumiar) is now in the cloud, SAP Lumira Cloud.

Here is more information about SAP Lumira:

 

 

SAP HANA on the Cloud – Collection of Facts

 Analytics, Business Suite, Corporate Topics, Ecosystem, Events, HANA, Innovation, News, On Demand, Technology  No Responses »
May 072013
 

 

enterprise-cloud-graphic-no-rule

SAP announced that SAP HANA is now on the cloud via service SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud.  Now companies can run their mission critical applications in a managed cloud all on SAP HANA.  Here is a collection of links that talks about what was announced.

Quotes from Vishal Sikka during the press conference:

“HANA cloud already has business intelligence, analytics, business warehouse, CRM systems.”

“HANA Enterprise cloud is for HANA only. Previous generation databases are not welcome here.”

“Workday and SalesForce.com will benefit a lot by moving to Hana cloud.”

What’s “HOT” about SAP HANA

 Analytics, HANA, Innovation, Technology  No Responses »
Apr 292013
 
SteveLucas_pic

Join SAP’s Steve Lucas and Partha Chakraborty from IBM as they talk about SAP HANA at an SAP Insider webinar.  The two will answer questions about SAP HANA and why it is one of the hottest stopics within the SAP community.

Date: Tuesday, April 30

Time: 9:00am EST

How: SAP Insider

Customer Stories Accessible via SAP APP

 Corporate Topics, HANA, Mobility, Technology  Comments Off
Apr 252013
 
customer app

I was checking out mobile apps SAP has to offer and came across a new app that gives the outside world easy access to great SAP customer stories. The app is called “Customer Journey”.

I found the app simple and easy to navigate.  The home page rotates every few seconds with a new customer story.  Users can also find customer stories via an index, where they can sort them or see them by date.  For a more refined search, users can filter  the stories by SAP solution, line of business or industry sector.

There is not a lack of information once you find a customer you want to learn more about.  Each story provides a comprehensive view of the customer and how they are working with SAP to run better.  I particularly like the “journey ahead” section, where the story concludes on what is next for the customer.

Every time you launch the Customer Journey app you will be notified of new customer stories.  The app is easy to use and very low maintenance! 

Here is a short video/demo about the app.

This app can be downloaded on iTunes.

If you are interested in other SAP apps, download this app that navigates all of SAP apps available on iTunes.  Or just go to the SAP App store.

Happy Apping!

 

 

SAP HANA Q&A via Twitter

 Analytics, Business Suite, HANA, Technology  Comments Off
Apr 192013
 

Mark your calendars for a live SAP HANA Q&A on Twitter.  EVP for Database & Technology Steve Lucas (@nstevenlucas ) and SAP Mentor and blogger Jon Reed (@jonerp) will spend an hour answering all questions about SAP HANA.

DATE: Thursday, April 25

TIME: 9am PT / 12pm ET

TWITTER HANDLE: #SAPCHAT

 

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