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I live and work in USA but spend time in Europe. I noticed that in Europe SAP is wildly popular and a large percentage of “software engineers” are “SAP/ABAP pro

I live and work in USA but spend time in Europe. I noticed that in Europe SAP is wildly popular and a large percentage of “software engineers” are “SAP/ABAP programmers”. I have some engineer friends in Eastern Europe and they’re taking about how their employers are in the process of, or considering moving to SAP and away from in-house programming. These are not massive enterprises, mind you. Just small to mid size companies. In the US, on the other hand, I’ve never met a SAP engineer and in-house systems are the norm. What’s the deal with this disparity?

kokey 7y ago
Having worked for many multinationals, I've also noticed such a difference. If it's a US company it would often have a group of in house developed systems that are integrated with each other to some degree, and a team that maintains it, that would manage various things like inventory and lifecycle of systems and products and even sales and customer service. European companies, including those in the UK, would often shy away from such efforts and lean more heavily on enterprise vendors and consultants to attempt to deliver this or try operate with nothing at all. I'm generalising, there are exceptions, but I got the impression that there is a certain kind of engineering culture in the US that is willing to take the risk on such in house projects and realise the value of managing it in house and they also have something that makes them able to execute it successfully.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  In-house software development is very rare in the EU if the main business is not software. And every other company that has in-house software tries to migrate from their "legacy in-house solution" to a "industry-standard solution".