Purchase software

With my adult son, who no longer lives with us, I had an exciting argument about the value of gold. Purely physically and chemically gold does not make much and can be replaced by other precious metals. But gold is being increasingly bought again by some central banks and is consequently rising in price.

I, too, have discussed buying gold bullion with my wife. The discussion about the value of gold has not yet been decided in our family. I had a similar discussion at a Group CIO meeting in London, but the topic there was not gold, but SAP licenses.

At the meeting, the following scenario was put to the test: Imagine you are the CIO of an almost perfect SAP Business Suite 7 installation. Almost all users including the management are satisfied.

And one day you are supposed to change the ERP system - for whatever reason: hostile takeovers, service costs too high, new IT concept, alternative software, etc. New game, new luck - you think to yourself.

So the old SAP system is frozen. Maintenance is terminated, many licenses are shut down. The development and test servers are shut down. The system is reduced to the minimum, but kept fully alive so that one can still access the data - which is unavoidable due to legal and organizational requirements.

At this point, you will have a functional SAP system with which you can continue to extract data - and thus also prepare a perfect legacy data transfer.

Almost a story with a happy ending. But what if you were persuaded in the past to move to the Hana Enterprise Cloud (HEC) with all Suite 7 licenses?

No matter whether with S/4 release change around 9000 euros or not. Your data is now in the cloud, you may be able to download this as an ASCII file, a Hana database copy would also be possible - only you no longer have a single on-premise license with which you can continue to guarantee access to your legacy data after termination of the HEC.

We know of no path that leads from the HEC back to earth (on premise) and guarantees a functioning SAP system. Anyone who wants to experience operationally how important frozen, functioning SAP systems are (even with decommissioned licenses and discontinued support) can take a look at the failed drugstore chain Schlecker.

HEC is a disaster for R/3 and ECC 6.0 existing customers! Most users in Europe have understood this, yet SAP does not change strategy or offer solutions.

This is pushing many customers to the next logical step: using their own licenses in an Amazon, IBM or Microsoft cloud.

The AWS Summit in Berlin was a great success. Three of my colleagues were there to explore the situation for private cloud computing with private SAP licenses.

HEC and also HCP (Hana Cloud Platform) are the loss of all autonomy. And not only many SAP customers recognize this sword of Damocles peering out of the cloud here. Salesforce, SuccessFactors, Hybris and many others also offer applications from the cloud, which are no longer available once the cloud subscription is cancelled - but then the data is also worthless.

My response:

With the own SAP licenses (purchase software) into AWS and build a hybrid ERP architecture. Interesting in this context was a statement by the law firm and analyst from Osborne Clarke at our London CIO meeting:

"Purchased software is as seminal as a VHS tape."

I protested loudly and gave consideration to what would have to happen in a post-cloud period. I remember one of my most important textbooks from a very long ago computer science study: Algorithms and Data Structures by Professor Niklaus Wirth.

Today, I say that applications and data are encapsulated, making the triumvirate of licenses, algorithms and data indissolubly linked.

So if SAP does not offer a sustainable concept for a post-cloud era, the move to the cloud cannot be justified for business, organizational and legal reasons.

Along with cloud computing, an open and transparent discussion about licenses and support must also begin. There must be exit strategies that are organizationally and legally watertight.

A banal demand that every project manager follows, but which has obviously not yet reached my Walldorf friends. A quick phone call to my colleague on the DSAG board revealed that there is no discourse on the topic of the post-cloud era there either.

High time to install a topic group by the annual congress in Nuremberg, because there will be a time after cloud computing. Promised!