This week has seen diginomica team members in Orlando for SAPPHIRE Now and San Jose for NetSuite SuiteWorld. I was in San Jose at the SuiteWorld event but had contact with colleagues over in Orlando. Which was better?
At wireless technology giant Qualcomm, insiders are said to refer to NetSuite's cloud ERP system as 'the rapid platform', in contrast to the 'legacy platform' from Oracle that runs its core systems. Already deployed in peripheral business units, a larger role for NetSuite may now be on the cards.
This morning's keynote was all about demos. That's great for prospective customers but there needs to be more. In this keynote, Evan Goldberg, CTO NetSuite showed us a slew of enhancements including work on the user interface, multi-book accounting and a natty wine distribution application developed by a partner.
Well - I got that wrong. Contrary to what I thought, the NetSuite SuiteWorld opening keynote and surrounding executive presentations did not center on retail. Instead, the company chose to walk us through the four big elements of the company's focus: the suite, customizations, omni-commerce and suite for industries.
Day one of Sapphire Now 2013 brought its share of surprises and enough hyperbolic HANA-is-superfast quotage to keep the hype meter in proper orbit. I spent a good chunk of day one in the JD-OD.com video studio with customers and startups, getting the views from folks who had made the trek from Czech Republic, Germany, and Israel.
Will the worlds of classic enterprise computing and truly cloud-native architectures ever converge? At one end of the spectrum, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud jibes with the mainstream view of an enterprise cloud strategy. At the opposite extreme is the approach evangelized by cloud-native pioneer Netflix.
Intacct is introducing Flex Reporting, a tool that extends the existing report capability to one that is more aligned to operational reporting. I'm not convinced they've got this right but rather are shackled to an accounting mindset. That will limit their ability to upsell or grow into new markets.
Now that SAP has all the HANA talk out of the way and the HANA Enterprise Cloud has been unveiled, what can we expect from the Sapphire Now keynote stage? Well, more HANA of course. What else were you expecting? We offer some clues.
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud has many implications for both customers and the broader SAP ecosystem. Making sense of them all in what will be a complex world is not straightforward and we anticipate many twists and turns.
SageOne is finally gaining some respectable traction with a paying customer count of 11,500 as at 31st March 2013. But what lies beneath those numbers and to what extent is the company stretching itself.
Grab a coffee. There's a lot to digest. Vishal Sikka, executive board member SAP's infectious enthusiasm for SAP HANA - his little girl - is palpable.
Infor has a new and attractive UI, a comprehensive integration story and is starting to make moves in the mobile space. But are these enough for the company to 'suck less' and brings its customers into the 21st century? It is too early to say but early signs are promising.
Infor is an unexpected rider hitching a lift on the bandwagon of next-generation enterprise software. It aims to outsmart larger rivals Oracle and SAP in enabling its customers to take advantage of all today's buzzwords - mobile, social, big data analytics and cloud connectivity. But is its customer base ready to take advantage of all the goodies unveiled at its annual conference this week?
