{"id":164772,"date":"2026-07-02T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/?p=164772"},"modified":"2026-07-01T14:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:17:53","slug":"a-never-ending-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/ein-schrecken-ohne-ende\/","title":{"rendered":"A Never-Ending Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happened at Sapphire in Orlando? SAP CEO Christian Klein took the keynote stage on Tuesday, May 12, and tried to convince the SAP community of his very personal vision for AI. Using his new favorite word, \u201eautonomous,\u201c he painted a picture of a new SAP\u2014Christof Kerkmann, an editor at the German newspaper Handelsblatt, was in Orlando and reported, among other things: \u201eThe capital market, too, does not seem entirely convinced. SAP stock reacted to the major product showcase on Thursday and Friday with only slight gains. The market environment was challenging, and other software manufacturers also posted losses. The momentum wasn\u2019t enough to break away significantly from the negative trend.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following cloud computing, Christian Klein is attempting to use AI to bring SAP\u2019s stock price back to its all-time high of 280 euros. The stock price trend on the day of Christian Klein\u2019s keynote in Orlando is revealing, as shown in the chart: Expectations were high at the start of the SAP keynote on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. European time. The tension mounted, but after half an hour, it became clear: Aside from empty buzzwords like \u201eautonomous\u201c and, of course, AI, there wasn\u2019t much else to report. The stock price slipped again, to a level that is almost exactly half of its former all-time high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the leadership of CEO Christian Klein, the Walldorf-based software giant SAP is thus currently undergoing a downright frantic and panicked strategic shift from the cloud to AI\u2014a move that, upon closer inspection, raises profound doubts about the company\u2019s technical stability. Driven by the financial markets\u201e existential fear that agile AI giants like OpenAI or Anthropic could render the traditional, manual ERP business model, Klein has already buried the \u201cNorth Star Architecture\u201e of the SAP Business Suite\u2014which had been celebrated so enthusiastically just a year earlier\u2014at the Sapphire customer conference in Orlando. Replacing it is the new, heavily stock-market-driven vision of the so-called \u201cAutonomous Enterprise,\u201d with which Christian Klein aims to appease investors\u2019 massive pressure for innovation and prove that SAP will not be reduced to a mere data provider in the age of generative AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
At 2:30 p.m. European time, CEO Christian Klein began the Sapphire keynote in Orlando.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the Sapphire in-house exhibition, the SAP CEO presented this autonomous company as a revolutionary vision in which digital assistants and agents will, in the future, handle complex business processes independently in a matter of days rather than weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To accelerate this development, Klein not only announced the immediate activation of more than twenty AI assistants in Orlando, but also established a development fund of 100 million euros designed to provide financial support to customers and partners for the customization and new development of AI agents via the free development environment Joule Studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the most controversial\u2014and at the same time most important\u2014announcement for the SAP community at Sapphire was Klein\u2019s fundamental strategic concession: Following massive protests from user groups, he scrapped his rigid \u201ccloud-only\u201d dogma and admitted that future AI innovations would now also be made available to S\/4 Onon-prem customers via connectors, which represents a fundamental departure from the previous policy of coercion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Orlando, CEO Christian Klein opened his keynote address with the vague promise of salvation, \u201eThe Beginning of Better,\u201c to rally the assembled IT world behind what appeared to be a new era of enterprise software. Upon closer inspection, however, this highly polished slogan masks the Walldorf-based corporation\u2019s raw, existential fear of being marginalized by agile AI startups and tech giants in the fast-paced age of artificial intelligence.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"The Beginning of Better\": Christian Klein expressed his hope for an improvement in SAP's difficult situation on the Sapphire stage in Orlando.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,44463],"tags":[243,35728,65,624,236],"coauthors":[27825],"class_list":["post-164772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial","category-meinung","category-mag-26-06","tag-boerse","tag-christian-klein","tag-hana","tag-ki-joule","tag-sap","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-400x180.jpg",400,180,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-768x346.jpg",768,346,true],"large":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"image-100":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-100x45.jpg",100,45,true],"image-480":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-480x216.jpg",480,216,true],"image-640":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-640x288.jpg",640,288,true],"image-720":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-720x324.jpg",720,324,true],"image-960":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-960x432.jpg",960,432,true],"image-1168":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"image-1440":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"image-1920":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"trp-custom-language-flag":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-18x8.jpg",18,8,true],"bricks_large_16x9":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"bricks_large":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"bricks_large_square":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial.jpg",1000,450,false],"bricks_medium":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-600x270.jpg",600,270,true],"bricks_medium_square":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-600x450.jpg",600,450,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/e3mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Editorial-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

The Beginning of Better: Eine Verbesserung der misslichen Lage von SAP w\u00fcnschte sich Christian Klein auf der Sapphire-B\u00fchne in Orlando.<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Editorial<\/a>, Die Meinung der SAP-Community<\/a>, MAG 26-06<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Peter M. F\u00e4rbinger, E3 Magazine","url":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/author\/peter-m-faerbinger-e-3-magazin\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164883,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164772\/revisions\/164883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164772"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e3mag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=164772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}