History will tell if the title above contributes to the list of oxymorons like military intelligence and jumbo shrimp, but I was part of two very interesting sessions during my West Coast swing (more posts to come on my other meetings)
The first was with Denis Browne, who heads SAP Imagineering. Between discussing a wide range of innovation projects from event based architectures and sensory networks, we also discussed the scary new world of cybercrime.
My question to Denis was one I have posed before - why are SAP's innovations not more visible? Denis's answer - one I have heard from several other SAP executives - "our customers keep telling us to deliver robust, production quality support." Unfortunately, it's selective hearing on SAP's part - customers certainly expect that. But they also expect innovations - tested, hardened by SAP - and they expect continuous improvement in economics. The more they free up Denis and his team to get the customer base to dream, the better.
If SAP can be accused of selective hearing, Oracle has been accused of not hearing its customers much at all. So, I was a bit skeptical when Karen Tillman of Oracle invited a few Enterprise Irregulars to a presentation of "Oracle Listens"
Ahead of Oracle OpenWorld coming up in a couple of weeks, Oracle has lined up 30 executives to answer customer and partner questions at the Listens site. What gets showcased and what gets censored will clearly decide the vibrancy of this social experiment. The Oracle team we met with was very open - we discussed a wide range of topics from Oracle's evolving relationship with bloggers, where Jesper Andersen was headed (Cisco), the recent "email gate". Would that level of transparency show up on the site? Would their executives continue to be active a few months from now? After all, many have blogs that have not been updated in months.
Denis and Karen, in different ways, are what I want to see as the future faces of SAP and Oracle. As I said, history will tell if they do...
