All Roads Lead to Madrid – The Future of SAP SAPPHIRE NOW and TechEd
SAP watchers may be wondering what’s going on in Madrid next month, as events that have traditionally been separate – SAP TechEd and SAPPHIRE NOW – will be held concurrently. To get to the bottom of the event plan, we spoke with Jonathan Becher, Chief Marketing Officer at SAP.
SAP HANA – Updating the Naming Conventions
With the general availability of its SAP HANA appliance in June, the bigger picture is starting to come into focus. It’s time set the record straight on some HANA naming conventions, many of which have changed recently.
What are SAP Shared Services, and How Can They Increase ERP Value?
The idea behind shared services is to create centralized service centers that become more efficient at providing services, in part by automating many components. Here’s how it works.
How RIAs are Impacting the SAP User Experience
If you’ve noticed that SAP applications are getting easier to use, you can trace the origins of that evolution to the subject of this month’s Jargon Buster: rich Internet applications (RIAs).
Enhancements Packs and NetWeaver Versioning – Clarifying the Relationships
In the SAP world, each Enhancement Pack is inextricably linked to the SAP NetWeaver stack upon it runs. But if you look solely at the version numbers, you will be forgiven if you run into confusion. Here’s the inside scoop.
SAP Competency Center vs. SAP Center of Excellence: Semantics or Critical Distinction?
Even veteran SAP practitioners should be forgiven if they have a tough time discerning the difference between an SAP Competency Center and an SAP Center of Excellence, not to mention the SAP-preferred term, Center of Expertise. The distinction matters.
Deliver More Benefits at Lower Cost – With SAP Application Lifecyle Management
Most any company would express interest in reducing costs, providing business continuity, continually improving business processes and innovating more rapidly. In SAP’s view, Application Lifecyle Management (ALM) has a lot do do with those benefits.
Making Sense of SAP Business Transformation (and Value Engineering)
SAP is intended to be all about providing business value. But that simple fact too often gets lost in the shuffle. Two SAP services offerings are intended to ensure that companies do indeed get the value they intended out of their SAP products: Business Transformation Services and Value Engineering. Here’s how they work.
Settling the Score on the New SAP NetWeaver Versions
SAP NetWeaver tends to create some degree of confusion among customers.Two new NetWeaver releases will be hitting the market soon: NetWeaver 7.0 Enhancement Package 2 (aka NetWeaver 7.02) and NetWeaver 7.30. The reason there are two versions, and the differences between them, is cleared up in this month’s Jargon Buster.
Answering the Questions about SAP’s OnDemand Applications
Confused about SAP’s on-demand application portfolio? Curious how Business ByDesign fits into SAP’s large enterprise Line of Business offerings? For this edition of Jargon Buster, we’ll ask (and answer) some of the most frequently asked questions about SAP’s SaaS applications.
SAP BusinessObjects Name Changes: A Portable Translation Guide
Even the best-informed SAP customers have done their share of head-scratching on the topic of SAP BusinessObjects name changes. For this edition of Jargon Buster, we have a cheat sheet for you. Impress your leadership team and wow your colleagues.
Cracking the NetWeaver Puzzle
Google the term “NetWeaver” and, at least in the U.S., you’ll get more than 8 million results, with one of the top hits being a link to the question “What is NetWeaver?” – which unfortunately brings you to an answer from 2003 that is sorely out of date.
The question, however, is a good one, as over time SAP has applied the NetWeaver name to many different parts of its product portfolio, in the process creating confusion over just what NetWeaver is.
SAP Business Suite 7 Innovations 2010 – In Practical Terms
SAPPHIRE NOW 2010 marked the announcement of “SAP Business Suite 7 Innovations 2010.” But is it standalone software? Is it a new upgrade? And how does BS7 i2010 connect to other 2010 rampups? If the “Innovations 2010” announcement left you with some lingering questions, this edition of Jargon Buster is for you.
Virtualization Brings Big Benefits to SAP
Virtualization is all the rage in IT and stories abound of customers realizing dramatic benefits from the technology in its various forms. As it turns out, many of those benefits can be applied to SAP implementations, including increased hardware efficiency, faster provisioning and easier maintenance.
Enterprise Mobile Translation Guide
You can’t wander far at an ERP trade show without running into a mobile vendor or presentation. That was certainly the case this year – SAPPHIRE NOW was abuzz with SAP-Sybase-mobile talk. But new tech brings new jargon, and “tech geeks” don’t provide subtitles. To prepare you to converse with the most jargon-heavy mobile guru, here’s our “Enterprise Mobile Translation Guide.”
Agile Development – What Does it Mean to SAP Users?
These days, you can’t go to an SAP show without hearing keynotes referring to “Agile” approaches. Hop onto Twitter or the SAP Community Network, and you’re likely to stumble on a conversation or blog about Agile development. But does the talk about “Agile” justify the hype? And what relevance does Agile have in an SAP context?
Social Networking in the SAP World
There’s no substitute for cultivating your professional network through traditional means, but if you haven’t already added a social media component to your networking strategy, you’re missing out on the benefits the Web brings to reaching out beyond the circles you currently engage in.
