A couple historical examples: for a time in the mid-90s, ALE-EDI-IDOC was the hottest technical skill set going. When I noticed the slowdown in ALE jobs, I thought something was up. One ALE consultant I knew agreed with me. He started pursuing hot EAI technologies like WebMethods, which eventually led him into XML and then into NetWeaver XI.
By paying attention to what terminology SAP was emphasizing, he was able to stay marketable. I know some other ALE folks who weren’t so lucky. They stuck with the technology after SAP stopped emphasizing it.
We can point to numerous other examples, perhaps none more prominent than the so-called "New Dimensions" products which we all once thought of as the future of SAP. When SAP stopped using the "New Dimensions" term, it was a high-level indication that the post-Y2K strategy of focusing on branding add-on components was not working.
SAP has reclaimed its market position by refocusing on innovating with the core ERP release first and foremost. Sure, SAP’s terminology choices can be a little wacky sometimes ("New Dimensions" always seemed like a better name for a new religious cult than a new product line) but the usage is always intentional.
Upon return from this year’s ASUG/SAPPHIRE in Atlanta, I combed through my notes and studied which terms SAP is emphasizing and which they are downplaying. Some of the results may surprise you.
While this is a fun and useful game, there is speculation involved. We can’t always be certain of SAP’s exact motivation, but the frequency of usage is almost always a good indicator. Even a subtle shift, like the one from "Enterprise Portal" to "NetWeaver Portal," has a reason.
In this case, we are probably attribute the change to SAP’s focus on the NetWeaver brand. However, SAP’s efforts to distance itself from the 4.7 "Enterprise Edition" of R/3 might also have something to do with it.
With that in mind, let’s look at some buzzwords and rate them on a scale from "boiling hot" to "ice cold." We’ll also consider the underlying market conditions that are influencing these changes.
One note about the methodology I used here: in addition to the interviews I conducted with SAP product managers, I also compiled all the press releases issued during the conference into keyword-searchable format. Then I did searches on certain phrases to determine their relative popularity.
We’ll take this press release analysis with a grain of salt, because SAP *always* tries to tone down the use of proprietary terms when they issue big press releases. But we can be safe in concluding that the buzzwords emphasized in these press releases are the key terms SAP is branding at this time. I’ll be referring to this data during my examples.
Hot: "NetWeaver"
Ice Cold: "Basis"
Why? Almost any terms linked to the "R/3 era" are being phased out. "Basis" is high on the list of terms no SAP executive is willing to use in public. The only problem? Many companies still need Basis specialists, and a similar term to describe NetWeaver skills has not yet taken hold.
I’m not sure that there can be a "NetWeaver specialist" because NetWeaver encompasses so many tools and technologies, NetWeaver also includes development environments. The term "NetWeaver Administrator" might be the logical transition from "Basis Administrator," but we haven’t seen it used much.
Regardless, "Basis" is out, and all Basis folks are on notice that NetWeaver is the future. Perhaps it’s for the best - the term "Basis" has many non-SAP uses, so there was always the potential for confusion. Proving the point, in the batch of conference press releases, the term "Basis" was used twice, but for other purposes.
Meantime, NetWeaver was used a whopping 57 times. Since you can only brand so many terms on a massive level, the heavy branding of "NetWeaver" means some other term has to take the back seat. That term is "mySAP."
Hot: "SAP"
Lukewarm: "mySAP"
Why? Rewind to the year 2000. ERP suites were being mocked as monolithic dinosaurs, unable to keep up with the speed of the Internet. ERP vendors were getting hammered for their awkward "user-unfriendly" interfaces. Best-of-breed darlings like Siebel and Ariba and Commerce One were the industry darlings.
Even the term "SAP" suddenly had "legacy" connotations. The solution? The "New Dimension" product line, and also slapping "mySAP" on virtually every SAP product name. At the time, the use of "my" before a term implied an "Internet-readiness," an ability to customize an application or web site for the individual user. These were the years before NetWeaver; the era of mySAP was upon us. Any consultant looking to stay on the cutting edge was trying to get some type of "mySAP" experience.
Now, "mySAP" is on the way to semi-retired status. Yes, it is still prominently used as part of the name for SAP’s main releases, "mySAP ERP" and "mySAP Business Suite," but often, you’ll now see these applications referred to simply as SAP ERP. And instead of mySAP CRM, it’s now usually just SAP CRM. The term "NetWeaver" was used 57 times in the press releases, the term "mySAP" only once.
Why does this matter? This terminology change points to the rejuvenation of the core SAP release. In the age of SOA, ERP is cool again - as long as it can talk to the outside world and doesn’t require a team of coders to make something work. No coincidence that most of the jobs we see these days involve core SAP release and upgrade work - classic financials and human resources projects with some Internet-based bells and whistles thrown in. "mySAP" is still a welcome term, but like a great racehorse, it’s run the hard laps and now it’s heading out to pasture.
Hot: "PI" (Process Integration)
Lukewarm: "XI" (Exchange Infrastructure)
Why? XI, we hardly knew ya. Just last year, XI was the hot term for NetWeaver’s integration and messaging hub. Now you’re supposed to call it "PI," as several high-ranking SAP product managers emphasized to me during the conference.
Of course, there is some awkwardness here, as "PI" is still SAP’s abbreviated name for "Process Industry" functionality. I talked with a Process Industry executive who didn’t have a real good explanation as to how the "PI" term would be shared. But make no mistake, it will be shared. It’s about NetWeaver PI now, and XI is on the way out.
But why the term switch? It’s all about emphasizing business process management. The guts of the functionality might be the same, but "XI" gets across a technical vibe, whereas "PI" is about making SAP friendly to business managers who can run the technology instead of having the technology run them.
I don’t see the name change having much impact on the XI or PI specialists out there, but I do think that SAP functional consultants should take these term changes as a sign: the successful "SAP Business Process Consultant" of the future will need to understand how to manipulate tools like PI that automate development and integration tasks. Functional consultants didn’t need to know "XI," but "PI" sounds like something they might need to have a handle on.
Hot: "Process Modeling"
Fairly Warm: "Java"
A Little Tepid: "Information Technology"
Not Warm but Not Cold Yet: "ABAP"
Why? Wait a minute -- Isn't Java in? Isn’t ABAP out? Well, not really. In the SAP of the future, all coding is out. In Chairman Hasso Plattner’s keynote, his main point of emphasis was "no more coding." Of course, what he really meant was: once companies upgrade to mySAP ERP, they won’t have to code in order to customize and upgrade their core functionality.
The message is still the same: coding is for the team holed up in Walldorf, not for SAP customers. SAP users will get the functionality they need through Service-Enabled "plug and play." Is this a fantasy? Perhaps to a degree, but SAP is making strides, and at this year’s conference, they could point to actual customer examples who have used SOA to build new apps and fill functionality gaps.
Yes, Java will still come into play with SAP development. The latest example? A press release on the NetWeaver Composition Environment (CE), which emphasized that the whole platform is Java EE 5-based. But that’s less about Java and more about SAP opening up its architecture and adhering to open standards. And as for retiring the ABAP term, not so fast. Yes, the ABAP marketplace has been forever altered by global offshoring, but ABAP is still around.
The virtues of ABAP for high-volume performance have convinced SAP to continue to offer ABAP-based development environments - even within NetWeaver. In reality, all coding languages are being downplayed by SAP in favor of "Process Modeling."
In its press releases, SAP doesn’t get specific about the tools customers will use in NetWeaver to accomplish this (such as the Visual Composer), but there’s no question that SAP wants to streamline development by empowering business users to take over more of the process and ensure that IT is in the service of business objectives rather than the other way around.
So from here on out, we’ll see lots of references to SAP as a "Business Process Platform." In this collection of press releases, Java was only referenced twice, and ABAP not at all. But the phrase "Business Process" was mentioned 37 times, and the Enterprise Services Repository, SAP’s name for the "container" that will house a company’s web services, was referred to nine times.
Yes, despite SAP’s emphasis on modeling, companies will continue to invest in SAP development. But we can be sure that functional *and* technical skill sets will change to accommodate this emphasis on process modeling over pure coding. To illustrate this point, in comparison to the 37 uses of the "Business Process" phrase, "Information Technology" was only used three times in the SAPPHIRE press releases.
Even as the strategic importance of IT increases, SAP doesn’t want executives to have to look under the hood, or to hear horror stories about what it took to make modifications to the core. The choice of the technology engine is now subordinate to the performance. The sexiness is no longer about how powerful the IT engine is in theory, but how easy it is to use and adapt in real-time.
To cite one more example, think back to when NetWeaver first came out. At the time, SAP frequently referred to the NetWeaver technology engine, the Web Application Server, in its marketing literature. WAS even had its own release schedule. Now the WAS has quietly been renamed the NetWeaver Application Server, and despite its importance as the engine behind NetWeaver, it rarely gets a mention.
If I were a NetWeaver Application Server expert, I would not be concerned, but I would also want experience in the more "outward facing" NetWeaver components SAP is emphasizing such as NetWeaver PI.
