Whither SAP?

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Barb Darrow at GigaOM assembles the case that SAP should 'go cloud'.

"...others said SAP has a cloud deficit that it should address.  (given SAP’s installed base of ERP users, it needs to) “take the Software-as-a-Service path to the cloud.”  “They need to build, buy or partner on SaaS ERP apps , or closely associated business apps as services to then move toward cloud values,” 

I fear this may be a bit of a cart-before-the-horse situation.  Cloud isn't the solution to all problems, it is part of the solution, and it really depends on what the problem-space is, i.e., you might have SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, or the new trend something-aaS.

Based on this view, I'd say SAP's big gap is that they need to expose themselves a lot more to others, i.e., work on (drastically) simplifying and pushing out their APIs,, and building out an eco-system where their clients and partners can share tools, techniques, and best-practices.

In many ways, most SAP implementations are already a cloud, just a highly private one at that.  Simply grafting on a lower-end ERP package (e.g. NetSuite) isn't quite going to do much fo them, other than help them be buzz-word friendly.

On the other hand, working from the inside out, i.e., using their existing systems to build out a global system and network of services, well, there is quite the future, ne c'est pas?

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