The soul of a new machine

It was about the development of a new computer class at Data General and a race against Ken Olsen, the founder of DEC. In the book "The soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder tells the project history of the hardware and software developers in literary form. In 1982, ten years after SAP was founded, the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

A similar book could be written about the SAP founders and former IBM employees. "The Soul of a New Business Administration" would describe the struggle for consistency, transparency, standardization and integration.

With "Matrix of the world - SAP and the new global capitalism"Ludwig Siegele and Joachim Zepelin have almost succeeded in writing this book. In any case, it is important to understand the "soul" of SAP!

Why? SAP is not just any means of transportation to get from A to B. SAP has "soul" and a standard business software philosophy. This knowledge is crucial when it comes to evaluating current developments and planning further steps.

Following the turbulence surrounding the publication of SAP's Q2 results, the German business press speculated about the sale of parts of SAP in order to possibly increase the contribution margin or to appease investors such as Paul Singer's US hedge fund Elliott.

SAP CFO Luka Mucic conceded that overlapping and small holdings will be sold off. However, the big picture must be preserved for the benefit of existing customers and partners and integrated as quickly as possible.

Breaking up SAP is not an alternative! The soul of SAP is its homogeneous and verified end-to-end processes. This "integration" has been neglected in recent years. But at Sapphire in Orlando, SAP CEO Christian Klein promised to maintain and further develop the soul of SAP in the long term.