As if enterprises, press and influencers would not be busy enough with Microsoft’s combined user conferences in Orlando and the dawn or Oracle’s Openworld next week- SAP decided to do an acquisition (with Gigya, ok these things happen when they happen), with a product launch event (for SAP Data Hub in New York) and its developer conference, SAP TechEd (happening in Las Vegas). 

 
 
 
 

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

 
 
Want to read on? Here you go:

SAP (hybris) acquires Gigya - This is SAP’s LinkedIn acquisition – only it offers IAM and SSO capabilities. The data will be interesting for hybris customers, the technology for SAP CP. And at a friction of LinkedIn (I assume here). A good acquisition for SAP customers. 


 
SAP TechEd Holger Mueller Constellation Research
USS Enterprise with Captain Kirk


SAP gets back to EIM – SAP acquired EIM capabilities with Business Objects (acta) and Sybase – but hasn’t done much with it. The SAP Data Hub is a new and modern attempt to address these markets – and the SAP internal integration challenges. Running elements in Kubernetes containers is an elegant 2017 architecture. Catering for data to stay in place is a risky bet – but SAP Data Hub could feed into a (Big) Data Lake, too. 

 
SAP Data Hub Launch Holger Mueller Constellation Research
The SAP Data Hub Scope
 
SAP Data Hub Launch Holger Mueller Constellation Research
Demo at SAP Data Hub Launch
 
HANA Express gets more cloud support – SAP’s developer version of HANA is now running on (alphabetically) – Azure, Docker, Google Cloud, Huawei Cloud (!) and of course the SAP cloud. Developer versions are important for community learning, so these are good moves to foster the HANA developer community.

 
SAP TechEd Holger Mueller Constellation Research
SAP CP Marketecture


SAP Cloud Platform – a ton is happening – Good to see the traction on SAP’s PaaS, SAP Cloud Platform (CP) where a ton is happening:
  • (Finally) ABAP support (beta) – SAP (finally!) courts its largest developer base and gives them a future. And ABAP is SAP’s (Salesforce) Apex or (Workday) Espresso – a very good DSL for business applications.
     
  • Mobile SDK (for iOS) – An area where SAP CP needed to get stronger – and the partnership with Apple needs a platform. Expecting the same to happen for Google.
     
  • CP Beta on GCP – SAP delivered as announced at CF Summit, always good to see vendors delivering. Important for SAP ML (Tensorflow!) and BigData requirements, and the overall partnership with Google.
     
  • S4/HANA SDK - 1000 customers need more software – Time to give the ecosystem a way to extend and build new pieces of S/4HANA, so good to see the SDK.
     
  • JAM APIs - finally some social – SAP’s weakest SMAC relationship, social… good to see APIs of JAM coming to CP, but more needs to happen here.
     
  • SAP Joins Cloud Native Foundation and Open API Initiative – An overdue move, when seriously courting developers and enterprises. Good to see.
     
  • Partnerships with Mendix, Egnyte and Built.io – Important partnerships for document management with Egnite and Built.io. Even more important for low code with Mendix, good to see SAP CP realizing that it can’t do everything inhouse, but low code is key for enterprise PaaS – so watch the space…
 
 
     

    MyPOV

    Overall good moves by SAP. Gigya is a good acquisition with multiple benefits. SAP Data Hub is a good attempt at EIM, but SAP customers have their solutions already, it will be a long slog for SAP to get the product in the install base. Good moves on the developer community with bringing HANA Express to more clouds. But most importantly is the beta of ABAP on SAP CP, as it makes CP the future platform of SAP code, and gives a future to almost 3M ABAP developer (my estimates) out there… finally a future for ABAP. SDKs and APIs are always good – we will see what developers and enterprises will build. The beta of SAP CP on GCP is key, given SAP’s commitments to Goggle Tensorflow.

    On the concern side, SAP is coming late to many of these moves, but better late – than never. Extra kudos for the ABAP beta – we have asked SAP for many years about the future of ABAP developers. If you lose a developer community it is always hard to make up (look no further than IBM with Rational). And SAP decided to build the road before the destination with EIM. Ok. But SAP needs a SAP native (or certified) BigData / Hadoop capability. All next generation application use cases require it. It’s a red thread across the design thinking driven workshops SAP is having for Leonardo (from what we hear from customers). And deep learning needs BigData to rebuilt itself continuously.

    But overall good to see SAP commitment in technology products. Becoming member of CNCF and OAI are good citizen moves on open source – that all key players have do to. It’s not too late, but urgency is needed – and SAP has shown some in the last days. Stay tuned.


    Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).

    More on SAP
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    • News Analysis - SAP reshuffles Executive Board - sets up for next 5 years - read here
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    • First Take - SAP Sapphire Day #2 Keynote - read here
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    • First Take -  SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
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    Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.