Just back from a discussion with Microsoft in Redmond on Azure, BPOS (SaaSy Microsoft solutions) and SharePoint 14 and one thing that popped up in my mind during the day was "djeez, SharePoint 14 will become Microsoft's Netweaver or WebSphere". In the evening in the bar, I mean behind my desk catching up with work of course, I was thinking "djeez, SharePoint 14 might even become a big threat to SAP's Netweaver". So first of all, why the comparison with Netweaver and WebSphere? SharePoint is turning more and more into an all-purpose integration platform rather than “just” a document storage product. With SharePoint 14, it is becoming a serious social computing, BI and ECM platform, thus becoming much more than "just" that “not so impressive” document storage system from its early past. So if you take this "I want to become a serious platform" fight together with the big plans around DUET 3.0 (its SAP integration solution), it suddenly becomes a big threat for SAP’s Netweaver integration platform. Microsoft positions itself more and more as the user interface for the SAP system with integrating SAP processes and workflows into Microsoft products like SharePoint and Office. So with SharePoint 14 suddenly getting seriously enterprisey, what is left for SAP then on the front end space? Portal? BI? ECM? Anyone? Will we get to the point where companies just have their SAP system as some kind of backend database and have SharePoint 14 as the integration platform? Thoughts? I'd like to say: Netweaver watch your back, there might be a new kid on the block... --- Lee Provoost is a Cloud Computing Strategist and ERP+ lead at Capgemini. You can follow his ongoing stream of thoughts on Twitter http://twitter.com/leeprovoost.
Will SharePoint 14 become SAP Netweaver's biggest threat?
L. Provoos
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I am a huge fan of decoupling SAP transactions from the user interface and what Microsoft has put out with their Office platform is very impressive. This just makes sense. Microsoft owns the user experience in business with Outlook, Word, Excel, SharePoint, etc..
Organizations can drastically lower their overall costs by taking one simple approach when implementing SAP with Microsoft – “The system should be as intuitive as booking a flight online, and if you’ve spent $1 on user training, you have failed”.
This is not rocket surgery. True value comes from leveraging source systems for their data and/or processes and not trying to put lipstick on them for the users. SAP is a backend business process and SAP should put more focus on service enabling the process data. SAP lost the UI battle and I have not heard of anyone getting rid of Microsoft Office in their organization.
Organizations can drastically lower their overall costs by taking one simple approach when implementing SAP with Microsoft – “The system should be as intuitive as booking a flight online, and if you’ve spent $1 on user training, you have failed”.
This is not rocket surgery. True value comes from leveraging source systems for their data and/or processes and not trying to put lipstick on them for the users. SAP is a backend business process and SAP should put more focus on service enabling the process data. SAP lost the UI battle and I have not heard of anyone getting rid of Microsoft Office in their organization.
Valid point about the training Jason. That is also one of the compelling reason imo to use familiar tools like Office products to wrap processes/workflows in SAP backends.
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