Responsible Scaling Policy

Christian Klein and Dominik Asam are doing an excellent job financially and strategically. The champagne corks are probably popping at SAP headquarters. At the DSAG Annual Congress 2024 in Leipzig in mid-October, the mood was not so euphoric. Many members of the SAP community are wondering whether Christian Klein and Dominik Asam have a responsible scaling policy.

The fact is that the SAP CEO and his CFO are mercilessly trimming the global ERP market leader for profitability: Up to 10,000 jobs have been cut, further cost-cutting measures have been introduced and considerable pressure has been built up among existing SAP customers towards the public cloud. These measures are now taking effect and are reflected in an unprecedented all-time high for SAP shares. Congratulations to Christian Klein and Dominik Asam.

Responsible growth would look different: An artificially conjured up end of maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 at 2027 or 2030 promotes SAP's profitability, but not the satisfaction of existing customers. In his keynote speech at the DSAG Annual Congress in Leipzig, SAP Executive Board member Thomas Saueressig argued that it would not be possible to continue SAP Business Suite 7 due to the expiring database contracts with Oracle, IBM and Microsoft and the license changes for Java.

Wrong! Thomas Saueressig is wrong here: E3 Magazine has reliable statements from Oracle and IBM that both database providers are very much in a position to adapt their products to S/4 requirements. In the case of IBM, former SAP Chief Technology Officer Bernd Leukert once made it unmistakably clear that IBM could be on a par with DB2 Blu Hana in the S/4 environment.

Thomas Saueressig's Java argument is also wrong: SAP NetWeaver once existed with a dual stack (Abap and Java). However, this combination has been dissolved. ECC 6.0 runs autonomously on an Abap stack. Java was and is used for selected form processing, but a replacement could be found quickly.

A continuation of ERP/ECC 6.0 with a NetWeaver Abap stack and adapted form processing as well as AnyDB based on Oracle and IBM is therefore not a problem. The artificial limit of 2030, which is only committed to SAP profit, could be overcome quickly. Responsible growth would then move into the SAP community. Existing SAP customers would be free to choose between on-prem, private or public cloud. Unfortunately for Christian Klein and Dominik Asam, the SAP share price would probably drop a little as a result of the "Responsible Scaling Policy".

The question of responsibility towards existing customers and a community is currently being discussed by the major AI providers in Silicon Valley. Due to the S/4 and Rise discourse at the DSAG Annual Congress 2024, the question of responsible SAP growth and share price is also being raised in the SAP community.