
What’s happening to the next generation of the SAP ecosystem? - mbesto
http://www.techdisruptive.com/2011/06/16/whats-happening-to-the-next-generation-of-the-sap-ecosystem/
======
brendino
SAP's lack of openness is a huge problem, and will continue to hinder its
development. Not only does the license cost millions of dollars, but then the
enterprise that purchases it has to hire dozens to hundreds of expensive
consultants to actually implement the behemoth. And if the company wants to
actually understand how to use the system, they need to invest in expensive
training sessions because any sort of public documentation (or documentation
shipped with the system) is far too vague to actually provide usefulness.

I tend to think that the lack of openness is done on purpose - that is, SAP
depends on its consulting partners to help sell its software, so they need an
incentive to sell it (not to mention, SAP has a consultancy itself).

SAP has tried to evolve recently with new developments like HANA (mentioned in
the article) and MII (tool used to connect manufacturing systems and provide
real-time KPI dashboards), but without a more-open ecosystem that enables
learning and innovation, it will continue to stagnate as modern technology
overtakes it.

The biggest hindrance preventing companies from ditching SAP for a modern
system is the fact that SAP is so complex and can handle so many business
scenarios. Although it stands behind the curve in terms of technological
innovation, it has decades of business specific functionality built into the
system. That's the main reason, in my opinion, for why enterprises haven't
jumped ship.

~~~
parfe
>I tend to think that the lack of openness is done on purpose

I doubt it. From my experience it's from outsourcing development to too many
different groups with no coordination.

I worked on interfacing with a BigName's Hour Time Tracking module which takes
hours to 8 decimal places. I submit the first payroll and hear it is imported
with no errors.

Two days latter I get a frantic email asking me to resubmit because the
Payroll module only takes 6 decimal places and was throwing out all the
submitted hours. The systems are so large the consultants themselves cannot
possibly understand it, let alone provide proper documentation.

~~~
brendino
That's a good point - enterprise software is meant to be customized to a
business, so maintaining a strong repository of documentation is difficult, if
not impossible.

However, I've noticed that even some of the core functionality is pretty light
on documentation as well (and it is typically written in German-English).

------
blumentopf
I had a customer project two years ago: Import data that came out of SAP HR-PT
into a MySQL database. HR-PT is the SAP personnel time recording system. This
thing generates plain text tables with each entry having a fixed-width data
type which has a peculiar German name. The 21st century solution for this
would be an XML file. So the impression I got is that the whole SAP codebase
seems to be stuck in the 1970s.

Working with this stuff is so complex that in Germany, it's an often-told
inside joke in the IT industry that some small and medium sized businesses
actually became insolvent by moving to an SAP-based system.

~~~
arethuza
My impression of the Tier-1 ERP systems is that they are effectively software
mainframes.

~~~
mbesto
It depends on your definition. As I understand it, mainframes are a 2 tiered
approach (client-server). SAP, like most systems today are built in a 3 tiered
approach (client-application-server). So much of what changed in the mainframe
days shifted most of the processing to the application layer, rather than
logic purely built on a massive database.

The software is good in a sense that it gets it's job done. For example,
should an application that completes financial transactions for one company be
any different for another? This is why companies continue to buy SAP.
Usability is a big issue from the client side.

~~~
arethuza
"Tier-1 ERP" means the big boys (SAP, JDE, maybe MS Dynamics AX) not a
software architecture.

------
paganel
> Big data is sexy. Ruby on Rails is sexy.

This is really a pity, because large companies can gather lots of interesting
data. For example, my wife works for a large (European) oil company, which has
been in the process of installing SAP (it only took ~ 2 years, with lots of
SAP consultants paid at 800-1000 euro per day </sarcasm>).

Anyway, being the big company that they are they have lots of gas stations
spread all over the country, in the best locations possible. But nobody is
doing anything with that sales data. They could write some heatmaps, make some
sales predictions based on how close a gas station is to a major road, see
when things change etc. There's no incentive for doing that, because it will
either involve re-hiring those consultants at 800 Euro per day or trying to
train the internal IT people to modify/extend the existing SAP installation
(good-luck with that!)

~~~
bchjam
I think they'd need to license one of the bulkier versions of BusinessObjects
to get the BI angle out of SAP. Not saying it couldn't be done in house but
the mentality of using something like SAP doesn't seem to fit with the home-
grown approach that well.

------
jriddycuz
This guy pretty much gets it. Young programmers, particularly talented ones,
are going to think that anything enterprise-y is just _lame_. Working at a
startup feels like keeping it real in a kick-ass garage band. Working at SAP
feels like playing triangle in a Gamma World City's Philharmonic. Even if it
pays well and affords a modicum of respect, it just don't do.

~~~
mbesto
It does pay well, which is why I'm often surprised there's not more demand
from the younger generation. For example starting salary for a SAP consultant
at a big firm starts at about $50k with some nice cooshy bonuses on top of
that. Very competitive with that of banks actually. But bankers have the
"promise" of making several folds of that if they just stick it out. I don't
think the younger generation sees that promise in the enterprise world - even
though I know many SAP in their 30's and 40's who are making more than enough
to support a family.

On the flip side there

------
jcslzr
The big advantage for SAP now is that they are the "right"choice for an ERP
system and directors dont take chances.

But if companies notice that their philoshopy is just take as much money of
their current customers instead of getting new ones, they can get in trouble
as soon as another brand its "sponsored" by big customers.

------
mtgred
They are actually startups tackling the SAP ecosystem with Open Source and/or
Saas offers targeting small and medium businesses: OpenERP, BrightPearl,
myERP.com

------
edandersen
People get into SAP for the love of money, not software.

