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Okay, let me help the author here. Having success and market penetration doesn't make things cool. It's great for the company, great for the ecosystem (and - t

Okay, let me help the author here. Having success and market penetration doesn't make things cool. It's great for the company, great for the ecosystem (and - that's a topic for another time in this particular case..) built around it. But not cool. Not sexy. It could be. Success, piles of money and 'cool' aren't incompatible per se. They are just unrelated in my book.He has to accept that for a large audience out there, _in the real world_, there's nothing more boring than looking at SAP (and - wait. and wait. and wait). "My advice: stop being bored by the stuff which makes the world turn." My advice: Don't blow this out of proportion. If SAP dies tomorrow, the world is not going to end.

yuvadam 15y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by 'SAP dies tomorrow', but - to put it bluntly - YES, the world will most likely stop functioning normally.
- darklajid 15y ago
  Fair enough. I'm the first to admit that I'm actively avoiding contact w/ that kind of technology (I did develop small things around SAP QA systems in a distant past, but except for that my exposure is limited to watching users around me). To explain: I meant if they go out of business (and I didn't imply that this was even remotely likely). If the software had a kind of stroke and wouldn't work anymore, starting tomorrow, I'd agree with you. I just hate the metrics used and the 'makes the world go 'round' tone in that article. What percentage of shirts, shoes and gadgets are produced in China? Would it be 'cool' (nothing against China..) to be live there, based on the 'We provide x% of the world's shoes' metric?
  - jameshart 15y ago
    > If the software had a kind of stroke and wouldn't work anymore, starting tomorrow, I'd agree with you Well that's interesting, because if the SuccessFactors acquisition is indicative of SAP's intent to become more "cloud based", and those critical infrastructure systems which run on SAP move to the cloud, then if the company went out of business their software would just 'have a stroke'...
Garbage 15y ago
If SAP dies tomorrow, the world is not going to end. Neither if Facebook dies. IMO, the point the author is trying to make is TC calling SAP's acquisitions boring.
- darklajid 15y ago
  (I didn't start the 'world ending' stuff, I merely commented on the - inflated, imo - line in the article that said that SAP et al make the world go round) 'Boring' is a subjective term. Hell, I don't read TC unless it is linked here and couldn't care less about them, but I assume that 'boring' is what came to their mind and (talking out of line here maybe?) connects with the majority of the readers. It sure as hell connects with me. SAP is boring. For me anyway. Do people in the SAP eco-system think that their work is boring? I sure hope not. Thing is: If someone says 'This is boring' then he's correct. That's an opinion, a feeling towards a subject. No need to argue about it. You can discuss _why_ that comes up or if TC should be opinionated like that in the first place, but the blog post fails to address that in any meaningful way. That post seems to be a rant about 'Why aren't we considered interesting and "cool" although our software runs in a majority of the world's breweries' and the whole argumentation is flawed. As I wrote elsewhere: Market penetration doesn't make you interesting to people per se. Being the leader in 'world's transactions' (?) doesn't by default make you a sexy subject for the technology folks. On a less serious side note: I found it hilarious that someone defending SAP as being cool resorted to a comparison table. With bullet points, outlining the market size and comparing company values. It's like being the nerd in high school and sending a letter to your beloved which rationalizes your desirability by comparing your grades with ~that dude's~.

yuvadam 15y ago

I'm not sure what you mean by 'SAP dies tomorrow', but - to put it bluntly - YES, the world will most likely stop functioning normally.

darklajid 15y ago
Fair enough. I'm the first to admit that I'm actively avoiding contact w/ that kind of technology (I did develop small things around SAP QA systems in a distant past, but except for that my exposure is limited to watching users around me). To explain: I meant if they go out of business (and I didn't imply that this was even remotely likely). If the software had a kind of stroke and wouldn't work anymore, starting tomorrow, I'd agree with you. I just hate the metrics used and the 'makes the world go 'round' tone in that article. What percentage of shirts, shoes and gadgets are produced in China? Would it be 'cool' (nothing against China..) to be live there, based on the 'We provide x% of the world's shoes' metric?
- jameshart 15y ago
  > If the software had a kind of stroke and wouldn't work anymore, starting tomorrow, I'd agree with you Well that's interesting, because if the SuccessFactors acquisition is indicative of SAP's intent to become more "cloud based", and those critical infrastructure systems which run on SAP move to the cloud, then if the company went out of business their software would just 'have a stroke'...

Garbage 15y ago

If SAP dies tomorrow, the world is not going to end. Neither if Facebook dies. IMO, the point the author is trying to make is TC calling SAP's acquisitions boring.

darklajid 15y ago
(I didn't start the 'world ending' stuff, I merely commented on the - inflated, imo - line in the article that said that SAP et al make the world go round) 'Boring' is a subjective term. Hell, I don't read TC unless it is linked here and couldn't care less about them, but I assume that 'boring' is what came to their mind and (talking out of line here maybe?) connects with the majority of the readers. It sure as hell connects with me. SAP is boring. For me anyway. Do people in the SAP eco-system think that their work is boring? I sure hope not. Thing is: If someone says 'This is boring' then he's correct. That's an opinion, a feeling towards a subject. No need to argue about it. You can discuss _why_ that comes up or if TC should be opinionated like that in the first place, but the blog post fails to address that in any meaningful way. That post seems to be a rant about 'Why aren't we considered interesting and "cool" although our software runs in a majority of the world's breweries' and the whole argumentation is flawed. As I wrote elsewhere: Market penetration doesn't make you interesting to people per se. Being the leader in 'world's transactions' (?) doesn't by default make you a sexy subject for the technology folks. On a less serious side note: I found it hilarious that someone defending SAP as being cool resorted to a comparison table. With bullet points, outlining the market size and comparing company values. It's like being the nerd in high school and sending a letter to your beloved which rationalizes your desirability by comparing your grades with ~that dude's~.