Sitting here watching the SAP Business Suite 7 launch by webcast while watching a twitter stream full of #bs7.
Thank god for a gentleman named Ian - he's having fun. And he should as this is the coolest I've seen from SAP. Mind you "seen", not lived with, nor analysed or studied closer, leave it at "seen".
Ian, sadly, seems to be the only one - everybody else is sombre, serious, even gloomy. Yes I know there's a crisis out there but why do you have to show the economy respect as if you were at a funeral?
Yes I know "enterprise software" is serious stuff, important stuff, pompous and certainly not to be made fun of. But so is life damned it! And life is always better if we have fun, are passionate and do not wander around fearing being hit by the next bus.
Business, enterprise is all about creating value, helping people, making people happy, safe, richer, fed, cured and all that great and positive stuff - so where the heck is the passion and the fun when one is instrumental in all of this positiveness??
Sigh...
Sir Richard, could you please take a break from consumer services and pop over to the enterprise software market and give it one of your thorough shake ups?
Who needs Sir Richard? I am sure we can do it between us Sig!
Posted by: Clive Birnie | February 04, 2009 at 18:05
Absolutely! So let's do it :D
Just have to remind myself every now and then so as not to get bogged down by the sad and serious and respond with furrowed brows and a sombre tone, bugger, it _is_ fun!
Posted by: sig | February 04, 2009 at 18:12
great post Sig - couldn't agree more!
Posted by: Chris Selland | February 04, 2009 at 18:14
Seems like all the enterprise software fun is at Sun: https://slx.sun.com/node/1179273210
Posted by: Pat Patterson | February 05, 2009 at 08:14
Hey Pat, that's a cool one, and practical - and of course fun!
But the folks at SAP do have fun they too (check their annual Demo Jams!), and I'm sure at Oracle and MS and everywhere - but the "official communication" stuff?
Nah, not so fun mostly... or what? OK, Jonathan is clearly less suit than many others, but still... :)
Posted by: sig | February 05, 2009 at 12:25
I was at that SAP press conference, covering it for a magazine. There was indeed much gloom in discussion of the current economic crisis. Part of the reason was the event was held in New York, not too far from Wall Street. It's hard to be upbeat around Wall Street these days. Maybe they should have held it in Palo Alto. On the other hand, they were trying to position their more modular suite as well suited to holding down upgrade costs and getting to high value functionality quicker.
Interesting blog and software approach you have. I'm intrigued by the concept of an object carrying all its needed characteristics and business events, rather than having all these millions of transactions littering the path of every business process.
Good luck.
Posted by: Roberto Michel | February 12, 2009 at 22:21
Thanks Roberto,
can imagine the presence of Wall Street could be a bit gloomy!
Guess I only expected that the chap arriving with a ladder for the poor sod stranded at the bottom of the ditch should show some optimism and wear a big great smile... ;)
Posted by: sig | February 13, 2009 at 18:15