SAP-Solution: S/4

In June 2026, U.S. export controls on powerful Frontier models such as „Fable“ and „Mythos“ made clear what many companies had previously underestimated: Leading AI capabilities for cyberattacks and cyberdefense are no longer a freely available resource.

Modern IT environments combine SAP systems with various Linux distributions. Agentic AI and the Model Context Protocol now enable the secure, automated management of these complex environments using natural language.

Artificial intelligence and digital technologies will be at the top of the agenda for German companies in 2026. As technology evolves, the importance of cybersecurity is also growing. At the same time, issues such as performance and competitiveness are coming into sharper focus.

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.

Multimatic, a global automotive supplier, is implementing SAP Direct Material Sourcing for Discrete Manufacturing in production. What the standard solution could do, where it reached its limits, and which requirements from the project were incorporated into an SAP release.

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.

The podcast for the E3 cover story is a supplement and continuation of the online texts from the E3 print magazine. A dialog between two AI avatars with knowledge from the German-speaking E3 editorial team provides an insight into the processes surrounding SAP and the SAP community. Translations into English, Spanish and French are provided by DeepL and Google.

The post-VMware era in the SAP landscape relies on KVM and can be combined with a robust private AI strategy platform. The Broadcom shock has had a profound impact. Virtualization is becoming a top-management issue.

Rising VMware costs and the desire for digital sovereignty forced the full-service IT provider FIS-ASP to rethink its approach. Through a phased migration to an open SUSE stack, the company significantly reduced its costs and created a future-proof infrastructure.

GenAI and Agentic AI are radically reshaping software and infrastructure stacks. However, the uncritical use of public AI for business-critical SAP data poses a massive business risk.

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.

To provide targeted support to companies in implementing the requirements of the EU Packaging Regulation (PPWR), NTT Data is expanding its BTP-based solution, Sustainability Data Simplified.