The best session for me from Software 2007 had little to do with enterprise software. A small group of us had a chance to sit down with Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola and his CTO, Padmasree Warrior . While I cannot blog some of the specific comments particularly about the recent boardroom news, it was fascinating to hear what drives Motorola. Fighting waves of innovation and global moves from Nokia, "fast follower" cost pressures from Samsung and other Asian players, building brand loyalty particularly in US market where the carriers own the customer relationship - you can see the terror and the drive in the organization (unflappable and jovial as Ed is). Product cycles, channel decisions, global expansion moves - everything compressed into days and weeks, not years.
I also ran a CIO Dialogue track at the conference. My kick-off slides were titled the Innovation Disconnect (send me an email if you want a copy) and I showcased several examples of innovation from my New Florence blog. I have written before about the MAGIC framework - small, intense, business results focused projects qualify in my book as innovation. The ones which make you go wow, not gulp. The kind that Motorola has made routine. 5 Year Vista and SOA rollouts do not qualify.
So against this backdrop, I listened to Hasso Plattner keynote about SAP's "New Idea". While I realize to differentiate from SaaS specialists, SAP cannot just showcase A1S (its planned SaaS offering), the palette he presented (see graph in this post) looked like a "best of" a band's albums over the years. I was in the back of the room with several CIOs and when Hasso touched on events and triggers, one CIO disgustedly walked out. Did those many years ago, many staff levels below his current role. Outside, a vendor rep asked me if I was impressed with SAP's in- memory database plans. Umm, he said, we already have citations for X times that performance. SAP is a fast follower, like Samsung, he was suggesting - but at a huge premium.
Dan Farber also paraphrases Steve Ballmer's comments at the conference "A large gap exists between the data center and desktop, he said,
including a white space in the area of exceptions, analysis, teamwork
and collaboration." More life extension for Office. More repackaging of "best of" for Microsoft groupies. Nothing wrong with that, but innovation? Microsoft has just woken up to that gap between desktop and data center? Where exactly does the enterprise fit in its portfolio of consumer advertising, games and other stuff?
I had Hasso's and Steve's lieutenants on a panel in my track, Dennis Moore and Cliff Reeves. I also spent time with both at lunch. They both gave me hell for my perspectives. Cliff even called me a "populist" for my views on software economics and how much of industry cash flow goes to investors and SG&A versus that in true new product R&D (no more than 3 to 5% of revenues - most goes in to bug fixes, localization of multiple versions etc). Fair enough - I have been called worse.
But don't just take it from me. Read the comments from the CIOs of Unilever, Fedex, Motorola and Disney (that Ross nicely transcribed) and then map it against what Hasso and Steve and other big software vendors are talking about. Rob Carter: "We haven't embraced services as much as we have provided them". Translation - my Oracle apps are years behind the web services I have long offered my customers for free. Tony Scott: Drop this "we are the greatest in the world" thing and give me an implementation strategy so I can bring this across my company. Translation - SAP - not just product innovation, also delivery innovation. Pat Morrison: My plea to the industry is quality. Translation - Microsoft, quit expecting us to migrate to Vista for a long time with your quality record. Neil Cameron: Had to pay less attention to standards, longevity (when it comes to new technologies). Translation - small, intense, throwaway projects. In contrast, Hasso said the "New Idea" was a skunkworks project started 3 years ago. But now has 3,000 developers.
Or take it from the McKinsey survey (read Sadagopan's summary) where 59% of of CIOs say they expect innovation from smaller vendors - only 19% from larger ones. Marc Benioff of salesforce.com astutetly picked up on the theme. In his keynote he showcased several entrepreneurs who have leveraged AppExchange. He also offers them an incubator at 20K a desk a year.
In fairness, Hasso was humble in his Q&A session. The tone was one of "we need to change". So was Dennis Moore on the breakout panel. And SAP's talking about co-innovation and more innovative ecosystems. But this is not about saying we need to change. It is about delivering the change. Change which makes you go wow, not gulp. In my track, Tony Scott of Disney made the point - if you want me to look at something new, I need breakthrough - 60-7o% - better results or cost.
On my flight to the West Coast, I discovered in my MP3 files several of ELO's hits from Strange Magic to Sweet Talkin' Woman. Gleefully, I played them over and over again. (Ed would prefer I listened to it on a Motorola rather than my HTC 8125, and my next PDA just might be. Indeed I look forward to leaving my PC at home). While those songs brought considerable joy on the flights, I am sure glad ELO does not call those oldies innovation and send me a bill for the multiple times I played them the last couple of days.
