Let the mud-slinging begin as Oracle starts this campaign
In typical Oracle fashion, it pushes the speeds and feeds button. Better from many CIO’s pov would be to show the lower TCO/risk dimension. No need to wait for talent and systems management tools to mature around HANA. No need to pay for two database environments because few SAP and most non-SAP apps will run on HANA for a long time.
As for SAP, it has been hurting itself via its salesforce and its partners saying HANA is now the “first-class citizen”. On the quiet, however, it has been sharing plans for continued Oracle database versions (including the in-memory switch in 12c) and Engineered Systems. I am sure there is similar for IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server, and for SAP’s own Sybase and MaxDB products.
The sad news is I am finding both SAP and Oracle are at an all time low when it comes to buyer trust. There is a clear vacuum for others to step in.