Author: Peter M. Färbinger, E3 Magazine

Mathematical necessity dictates that existing SAP customers must move away from the two-dimensional logic of relational SQL tables. A knowledge graph is based on mathematical graph theory and structures information in the form of nodes, edges, and properties.

A roundtable discussion hosted by E3 Magazine—streamed on YouTube—featuring licensing experts Myrja Schumacher of DLC, Andreas Knab of Soterion, and Lorenz Müller of HiSolutions reveals many pitfalls and areas in need of improvement in the SAP ERP universe.

This is a call for participation in DSAG’s organizational work: At the DSAG Annual Convention in Cologne this October, DSAG members will elect a new chairperson—it’s going to be a close race!

SUSE is much more than just an SAP operating system provider: The company serves as a strategic anchor for Europe’s digital sovereignty. Faced with the pressure of SAP’s end-of-maintenance, forced migration to the cloud, and monopolization in the AI market, SUSE offers a reliable, technically mature solution.

Those who decouple their data architecture can implement AI innovations more flexibly and at a fraction of the cost through external specialized providers, without falling into the next licensing trap set by Rise and BTP. The future does not belong to SAP’s closed monopoly, but to a composable ERP model.

With the announcement of the Autonomous Enterprise, SAP CEO Christian Klein has made a big promise to existing customers, as there is a lack of IT tools, ERP architectures, and B2B methods. Startups like Nova and Conduct are very cleverly filling the gaps in SAP's offerings.

To understand the immense importance of MCP, one must consider the structural integration challenges of modern ERP landscapes. Until now, integrating AI with existing S/4 systems has been a tedious and proprietary nightmare.

Now the decision has been made, and Anthropic has had to put two of its most powerful LLMs on hold. Just a few weeks ago, SAP CEO Christian Klein stated that Anthropic would be a key technology pillar of SAP’s AI strategy.

SAP’s Autonomous Enterprise offers a wide range of opportunities, from Agentic AI to Composable ERP. All the necessary IT tools for this are available in SAP’s portfolio. Ultimately, however, the question of affordability—based on licenses, maintenance, and Digital Access—remains.

Tabular foundation models seem tailor-made for SAP’s ABAP world. In an ERP system where everything is based on tables, an LLM (Large Language Model) has no place. With TabPFN (Tabular Prior-data Fitted Network), the startup Prior Labs can save SAP’s Autonomous Enterprise.

Naturally, in the first half of 2026, there was criticism of our criticism of Christian Klein and his fellow board members. The E3 editorial team is concerned and is pointing out the problems in a critical yet constructive manner. The result is truths that SAP, the global ERP company, does not like to hear.

AI knows only one path: to solve a given task optimally and once and for all! What seems like a radical approach to humans is, for the machine, its logical raison d’être. Because AI has no humanistic values, it will continue to optimize until its very end.