Blogworld is abuzz with this (leaked?) internal email from Lars Dalgaard, SAP’s cloud czar (@LarsLuv).
First of all – kudos. He probably saved SAP 7 figures not having McKinsey or Gartner Consulting do a SWOT analysis of SAP in the cloud applications market.
I did end up with a number of questions
- Has he talked to many SAP customers and his field about the best of breed positioning he is thinking about? And how many of them have pushed back with “but we bought into SAP’s “suite always wins” mantra 30 years ago”?
- Has he talked to SAP’s many SI partners? His biggest cloud cynics are right there in that ecosystem. And at least in the past SAP has not gone to the toilet without their permission.
- Has he found the infrastructure talent within SAP to scale the cloud business, and has he got the Board to sign off on a few billion in “hurry-up” data center capex investments?
- Can he super-charge the “clock speed” of his non-Silicon Valley development teams to “hurry up” mode?
And one big question for myself:
Why is this any different from the annual “announce, then retract” parade I have seen from Shai, Zencke,Apotheker, Wookey, Snabe, McDermott, Plattner, Sikka?
