Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a Enterprise Data

My views to be frank are not against SAP. I have made a honest upright criticism of SAP BW. FYI I have written even to Bill Inmon challenging him to write a rejoinder to is earlier criticism calling SAP itself as a data jail. Some of my views on SAP BW are as recent as BW 31x and BW 30B. Nothing much as changed it is old wine in new bottle.

I challenge anybody who would question my views to cross check with a cross section of SAP BW customers the TCO and ROI on SAP BW many SAP BW customers concede BW as ended up as a fancy reporting tool to R/3. Let people come up with numbers how much have they spent in even implementing so called business content on SAP BW. SAP BW is really spaghetti & sauce on shirt as Gartner calls of packaged BI applications.

My criticism of SAP is they have never come to grips that the product is over engineered and needs a total radical redesign it is never too late to accept a mistake and redesign the product than propagate a bad design. Firstly, SAP as a serious issue in working with its technology partners like Oracle or Microsoft. Since Oracle is competing now on SAP's patch then they embraced Microsoft I know about two years ago literally all SAP's training establishment in Walldorf was running on SQL server and Microsoft was their best friend and once MS entered into ERP patch now MS is another silent arch enemy after Oracle. Now they want customers to seriously consider migrating their SAP database platform to Sybase SQL Server. Even today it is a challenge to get SAP running on a web interface that is why they sell all that glue called Enterprise portals(Net Weaver) to web enable SAP. Today the whole technology industry is polarised either in the Java world or in the .Net world. Where is SAP still with its own proprietary ABAP world even at the latest and greatest release of SAP R/3 - R/3 enterprise it is all a ABAP world. ABAP is neither object oriented nor a modern programming language it is almost Pro *COBOL in flavor. Ask SAP what Java application server they have got - NONAME app server what is its credential - unproven. Do they have a .Net app server none. Still in todays world they are asking customers to build data warehouses , ETL, OLAP and data mining solutions that in ABAP that run on ABAP. People like Oracle have thrown all their proprietary technology baggage and rewritten their apps in modern object oriented industry standard languages.

If people still call this as industry technology leadership from a major software vendor like SAP they are in a different planet altogether, SAP is not even talking of providing its customers a full Java or .Net platform even in the next 5 years it is still only ABAP on the horizon. Before I conclude let me acknowledge one of SAP's forte it is their understanding of the business processes unquestionably this is the one and only strength remaining of SAP they have long last the technology & agility battle in the enterprise to their competition that is the bitter truth. They will next loose all their customers it is too late in the day for any more innovation. SAP technology still need monstrous hardware and expensive army of consulting resources and a open time frame in short a project to be started with a blank cheque to implement. Check with SAP customers who bought the product 6 or 8 years ago have the implemented it fully it is still work in progress ask the customers at least do they understand what is in the product most customers do not understand so much of the product features itself.

Belinda

"Joerg Narr" <n_o_spa_mjoerg_narr_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<c2nl5q$1v51fs$1_at_ID-25239.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> "Thomas Zurek" <thomas_at_hates.spam.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:c2nbii$gn0$1_at_news1.wdf.sap-ag.de...
> > Thanks. That explains on what kind of know-how all your other comments
> > on BW are based. Oh dear ... and good luck!
> >
> Thomas,
>
> In my opinion you damaged SAP's and SAP BW's credibility and reputation more
> than if you just kept quiet. This is a newsgroup wherein experts discuss
> issues. Most of us saw vendors acting much more professional than you did. I
> would suggest that you either contribute in a constructive manner or send
> this thread to some professionals at SAP who are competent and constructive.
> I know that there are many.
>
> To all the other people in here: Neither all German nor all SAP consultants
> act like Thomas.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Joerg Narr
Received on Thu Mar 11 2004 - 06:57:05 CST