From SAP TechEd to Oracle OpenWorld
The two enteprise software giants companies have been sniping at each other. David noted that SAP executives didn't go for the Oracle's jugular, as Larry Ellison did in reference to SAP when Oracle reported its quarterly results, but more subtle comments and asides were "peppered" throughout the presentation. The Oracle/SAP relationship is interesting, if only because SAP is Oracle's number one database reseller.
David's overall conclusion is that SAP is transforming itself into a different organization, but is conflicted between the new SOA platform and the legacy applications, which still loom large. David writes:
They have a toe in the Software as a Service waters, but are selling the strengths of their on-premise case and how customers should customize the hell out of the application to get real value. They wish they could be much more aggressive towards their key competitor Oracle, or the upstart Salesforce.com, and say the kind’s of things that Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff get away with, but they feel that is not the high ground of the SAP way. As the pace of change increases, inside and outside SAP, the way Shai [Shai Agassi, head of products and technology and potentially the future CEO of SAP] steers the ship is going to be very interesting.
Stay tuned for our coverage of Oracle OpenWorld...