Do you think anyone has a copy of SAP at home that they hack on in their own time for their own pleasure? I suspect not...<p>Anyway, I have to repeat my favourite quote about SAP from a Slashdot discussion:<p>"SAP is how Lucifer interacts with our world."<p><a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/2143219/Allegedly-Rigged-Product-Demo-In-SAP-Suit-Goes-Missing" rel="nofollow">http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/2143219/Allegedly-Rig...</a><p>Which I think sums it up nicely.
SAP was built in the seventies on seventies technology, which it still uses today (ABAP). None of it's front end reporting tools (even Business Objects) are anything like "modern", and every patch they release is more and more unstable.<p>TechCrunch people know this, I'm sure there are plenty of ex-SAP consultants who got pretty tired of badly run projects by badly educated middle managers who have no business being put in charge of enormous and complex SAP implementations.<p>I have worked for some of the biggest companies in the world fixing some of the rubbish out there, and you know why SAP has so much money? Because the business just order another instance to migrate to each time they mess it up.<p>And so it goes on...
SAP passes an image of a predictable company where innovation doesn't really happen (whether that's true or not is irrelevant - perception is what counts).<p>Money and size is irrelevant. Concrete supports all of our homes, but calling is cool compared to e.g. "ultralight metallic microlattice" [1] is ridiculous by most people's definition of cool.<p>[1]: <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/11/lightest-material-on-earth.html" rel="nofollow">http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/11/lightest-...</a>
So I'm just going to throw it out there that I'm a young SAP Developer. I've been known as an "up and comer" in the community (yes, we have a community) until I decided I was no longer sure I wanted SAP to be my long term career choice. I've done SAP hacking on the side on multiple occasions and I've even made money from a little side project that won a SAP innocentive challenge.<p>For all of you SAP naysayers (I oftentimes find myself among you) the best explanation I've ever heard for why to work in the SAP ecosystem is "If you want to change the world, you should work with the biggest lever you can find".<p>Feel free to ask questions.
<i>What’s wrong with the world is that they are so focussed [sic] on Apple, Google and Facebook – with their over inflated [sic] IPOs and everything that comes with that. The world was not built on technology bubbles – it was built on hard work and honest money.</i><p>Even if I agree with the author's sentiment, that last line made me laugh.<p>Also: Apple, with their over inflated IPO? (their IPO having been long ago) destroys SAP's revenue and profit.<p>Edit: The world <i>was</i> built on hard work, but I'm not sure how SAP is necessarily the embodiment of that.
I think the same can be said for 'boring' non-tech industries, like energy, transport, finance, food retail etc. These are essential industries that make the world turn, but because they lack the 'cool' factor they also get the blame for many of the ills in the world. This is while the entertainment industry (film, games, art, music) can shrink by 90% without causing much damage, are often considered less evil or even more important than those who provide the essentials.<p>I don't think the world has gone mad, I just think it's how the world is perceived from by different age groups. When you are a teenager you think you'll never stop listening to the cool new music when you are older, but when you are older you realise the latest craze is cute but not that relevant.<p>On a different tangent, every year or two I have a look at what is happening in the open source world in the space that SAP operates in. A few promising things pop up from time to time but never gets much traction, but it does seem to progress a bit over time, slowly. I think the only thing that will move it forward is if universities put some projects behind it in their business and technology courses.
Wait, what? According to his figures, SAP makes $1.18bn profit from $12.46bn revenue (about 10% profit margin); Facebook brings in $1bn profit from $4bn revenue (about 25% profit margin), yet SAP is somehow claimed /more/ interesting? By what metrics? Is SAP somehow gonna grow quicker than Facebook and overtake it?<p>However you slice it, both SAP and Facebook have major share of their respective markets. Facebook seems to monetize the market better. Next story please.
From the article:<p>"Well for my money SAP is possibly the most interesting technology firm in the world right now."<p>To be sure, what trips one's trigger may not do so for another, so to each his own. That said, this is just a synopsis of one guy's very tiny view on the world.<p>To the original author: the value of an acquisition doesn't set the pace for what's interesting. If that were the case, Exxon would be the single most interesting thing on the planet.<p>Rather than bitching about someone else not writing about something that interests you, why not start the Enterprise IT version of TechCrunch?
If any SAP consultants are out there reading this, can you give me some insights on how to get up to speed with the SAP products and ecosystem? I'm a developer/consultant (primarily Salesforce) but am interested in exploring SAP product offerings. Infos in profile.<p>I think there are probably many of us that are interested in this side of the "enterprise" but SAP is sort of its own universe and difficult to understand/penetrate from the outside.
The article establishes and uses a brand new metric:<p>SAP's technology must be interesting for develpers because it costs exorbitant amount of money to hire anybody to work on it. SAP is interesting for investors because it pulls in massive 10% profit margin. SAP's services are interesting for customers because it has high barriers to deploy, maintain and replace. SAP is interesting<p>By comparison, Facebook-like projects must be boring for developers because they flock to work on them, even if for free or `ramen-profitable' for year or two. Facebook is boring for investors because it manages mere 25% profit margin. Facebook is boring for users because barriers to entry and exit are essentially non-existent.<p>What kind of metrics is that?
I'm saddened by the fact that this is #2 on HN.<p>The entire thing is one big fat straw-man argument. The author (the bored one) didn't even <i>mention</i> FB in the article in question. The author (the attacking one) pulled that out of thin air based on little more than:<p>>From what I get of her article, if it’s not Apple or a startup, she’s not interested<p>Then he proceeds to refute the argument that he just set up by enlisting stats...not even convincing ones at that.<p>And finally whether something is boring or not is entirely subjective. This angle is as pointless as proving to stamp collectors that collecting stamps is boring.<p>I agree with his point in that the glamorous companies get attention at the cost of others & that this is a problem. The manner in which it was done however is a fine example of:<p>>a crap piece of journalism
I'm interested in hearing what the author has to say about this topic, I'm <i>really</i> not interested in this new FOX/CNN trend of quoting random people on Twitter, even if they're semi-famous.<p>This is somewhat OT, but can we stop with this? Quoting the immature salvos fired between random people on Twitter doesn't give your blog post any more credibility, and probably less. It's like news networks nowadays - they're more interested in what people on Twitter and YouTube think of some topic rather than seasoned analysts and correspondents.<p>The whole blog post would've been just as informative and way less irritating if I didn't have to wade through all the Twitspeak.
Okay, let me help the author here.<p>Having success and market penetration doesn't make things cool. It's great for the company, great for the ecosystem (and - that's a topic for another time in this particular case..) built around it. But not cool. Not sexy.<p>It could be. Success, piles of money and 'cool' aren't incompatible per se. They are just unrelated in my book.He has to accept that for a large audience out there, _in the real world_, there's nothing more boring than looking at SAP (and - wait. and wait. and wait).<p>"My advice: stop being bored by the stuff which makes the world turn."<p>My advice: Don't blow this out of proportion. If SAP dies tomorrow, the world is not going to end.
SAP deployments must work in some cases, surely.<p>I read somewhere that a large part of Apple's supply chain management is built on SAP, as well as being the system of record for iTunes/App Store transactions.<p>I can't find a reliable citation, since this will probably not be something they broadcast, due to their secrecy.<p>But then, they have the capital to massively spend on heavyweight internal systems.
Also I think the main reason why no one talks about SAP is because SAP == Work whereas sitting at home and hacking together your own open source project outside of work hours? A welcome break.<p>To me: -<p>* Java EE == my day job == Work<p>* SAP == Work<p>* Working on own app at home written in Haskell == Fun hobby project that I do outside of work hours and doesn't feel like work
I work in finance and I use SAP. Or more accurately, I try my best to delegate any SAP tasks to my co-workers because I swear I lose IQ points whenever I interact with SAP.<p>Is it dull? It depends. For the TC crowd, yes, but that's because they're consumer oriented and not very technical.<p>It should be interesting to the HN crowd because it's a huge opportunity for disruptive innovation.
The thing is, if SAP did not exist there would still be some piece of crappy software running all those transactions. Maybe it'd be custom, maybe Accenture, whatever. In fact, many (most?) SAP installations are barely recognizable after the customization. And who can even guess what SuccessFactors does besides not make much money.
There's one thing he forgot to compare: number of employees.<p>According to Wikipedia, Facebook has 3000+ employees, and SAP AG has 53513. So, profit per employee is ~300k for FB and 22k for SAP.
I'm curious. Are any of you working on commercial ERP products or services? It seems to me that there is lots of opportunity there for well executed vertical applications.
Some of our applications here push a bunch of data to SAP via their API<p>To be honest I have no idea what SAP does nor do I really care, we just push a load of data over a network on a regular basis and the team who deal with SAP probably do something.<p>They all have to wear suits though while us Java programmers get to kick back in normal, comfortable clothing.
It's a humorous article. TC knows their crowd, and they are poking fun at everyone - themselves for not caring about a huge deal, their audience for also not caring, enterprise software for being boring.
The article is poorly written, and SAP is indefensible as a company.<p>That said, welcome to my world. It's been an interesting experience working in an industry (ecommerce) that is regarded as a huge yawnfest by most of the startup community. The reality is that there really are very interesting problems to solve. Algorithms to predict demand curves, optimize warehouse pullbox location, and identify product flow constraints are all arguably more interesting problems to solve than sharing photos.<p>Nonetheless, nobody cares. And that's fine, mostly.
On the one hand the author is right about how SAP is a behemoth and shouldn't be written off. On the other hand, this is TechCrunch we're talking about. Do we really expect them to cover SAP? TC has its niche and I'm not surprised at all. I think however the mistake on the part of TC wasn't not covering SAP but covering it in the way they did. If you're going to write an article about how the company is boring and dedicate the majority of the content to why you don't want to cover it then just don't cover it at all. It would look better for them had they just said nothing at all.<p>That said, the author of this post has an opinion. Cool. We all have opinions. But he was off the mark in implying that there's something wrong with techcrunch. There isn't. They're all about the cool factor and dare I say shallow startup porn.<p>The post was almost a great point but the implication that something is wrong with TechCrunch killed it. I'm not a fan of techcrunch. I think it's shallow garbage and reads like a thinly veiled commercial a lot of times. But I won't be writing any blog posts complaining about that any time soon. That's what we've come to expect from them and their audience loves it.
let's put it this way:<p>on any large german airport you currently get met with large billboards by IBM, advertising their urgent need for SAP consultants.<p>SAP is the backbone of the large tech consulting industry.<p>and no, you cannot compare it to facebook. like comparing a tv station to a manufacturing company.