CNBC's Jim Cramer on SAP Stock: "Completely Ridiculous"

When “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer quizzed SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott about SAP’s stock price, Cramer got more than he bargained for as McDermott cranked the discussion up to a much higher level and explained that software has permanently displaced hardware as the driving force of innovation, growth, and value.

Cramer, befuddled as to why the share price of fast-growing global powerhouse SAP is trading at “historic low” multiples, had opened the program late last week with some thoughts on SAP, which “is doing fabulously, but the stock has been caught up in the vortex.”

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SAP, Google expand collaboration partnership, eye enterprise mashups

SAP and Google said Wednesday that they are expanding a partnershipto take large data sets and integrate them into Google Maps, Earth, Docs and other products. The news comes after SAP reported a solid second quarter and raised its outlook for the rest of the year.

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SAP joins the Google Apps Marketplace with SAP StreamWork

SAP joins the Google Apps Marketplace with SAP StreamWork

This is a guest blog post from David Meyer, senior vice president for On-Demand, Productivity and Sustainability Solutions at SAP, the leading business software vendor to more than 100,000 customers in over 120 countries.

SAP StreamWork brings together people and information - from the web, your desktop, or business systems - and applies structure to discussions with business tools including pro/con tables, SWOT analyses, and polls to drive fast, meaningful results. Think about how easy it can be to allocate resources, prioritize sales leads, or define new marketing campaigns in a single, well-organized location. With Google Apps integration, the SAP StreamWork environment will be joined with the tools you are already familiar with in the cloud.

Read on: Official Google Enterprise Blog: SAP joins the Google Apps Marketplace with SAP StreamWork

Looking Ahead: SAP Software in 2011

SAP Business ByDesign 2.6, SAP enhancement package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0, and SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP CRM 7.0 are among the new products slated to appear in 2011.

We don’t need to look into a crystal ball to find out which new SAP products are slated to appear in 2011. We all know that major trade fairs and exhibitions such as CeBIT, SAPPHIRE, and SAP TechEd provide us with information about planned releases. But the smaller events shouldn’t be underestimated, either. For example, Peter Lorenz, executive vice president of Small and Midsize Enterprises (SME) at SAP, not only demonstrated SAP Business ByDesign on the iPhone to a select audience, but also presented a road map for software for the midmarket.

From enterprise content management systems and ERP software, through customer relationship management and on-demand solutions: Read on to find out what awaits you in 2011.

Looking Ahead: SAP Software in 2011 « SAP.info

Duet Enterprise Makes Its Debut

Duet Enterprise, a product jointly developed by SAP and Microsoft, enables users to operate SAP applications together with Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Launched today, the product further supports SAP’s overall co-innovation strategy.

In enterprise business systems, the fundamental goals of business units and IT organizations are often disparate. Business units are focused on driving growth and accelerating access to and the flow of information. IT organizations’ first priority, on the other hand, is to maintain efficient and secure business systems.

But in order to achieve business growth, greater integration between the two areas is required. Technology solutions must be able to support increased agility in business and enable timely access to information. That is where Duet Enterprise comes in. The product is intended for customers who use both SAP applications and Microsoft SharePoint and it aims to help business units and IT organization address their goals in an integrated, collaborative way. Duet Enterprise helps customers bridge the gap between the requirements of business users and the functionality that IT can deliver.

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SAP's Hana Speeds the Database Race

The German company's new software takes aim at the emerging market for pre-integrated hardware-software "appliances"

When SAP's co-chief executives, Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, took over in February, they promised a nimbler company that would deliver compelling software faster. On Dec. 1, the German company will announce one of the first fruits of that effort, a new set of programs for analyzing sales and workforce data that can yield answers to complicated questions in seconds.

SAP (SAP) Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka, at a conference in Bangalore, India, will unveil software that can hold hundreds of millions of database records—say, 10 years' worth of sales data—in a computer's memory instead of retrieving them from disk drives. In some cases, the software has been able to analyze hundreds of billions of records within seconds, SAP said.

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Understanding Marin County's $30 million ERP failure

The Board of Supervisors in California’s Marin County voted to stop an ongoing SAP project and seek a replacement solution, implicitly accepting that it wasted over $30 million on software and related implementation services from Deloitte Consulting.

The dramatic decision to replace SAP comes after relations between Marin and Deloitte Consulting, the implementation consultant on this project, deteriorated to the breaking point. Marin filed a lawsuit against Deloitte “seeking actual and compensatory damages of at least $30 million, along with unspecified punitive and, or exemplary damages and interest.” Deloitte has countersued Marin for approximately $550,000 in unpaid fees and late charges. SAP remains convinced that the software is working perfectly, and any issues in this implementation in no way reflect on SAP. So who's to blame?

The following article is a valuable lesson learned through another's failure. The lack of organizational preparation for a transformational event such as an ERP system implementation, as well as the lack of governance and the inability to manage the business changes required played key roles.

Read more about this learning opportunity here: Understanding Marin County's $30 million ERP failure

Facebook meets SAP

Facebook is the undisputed number one social networking site. Now, Facebook users can analyze their profile with the free Friend Network Optimizer. But what exactly can the app do?


Facebook now has more than 500 million registered users, so it’s no wonder that a large number of apps are available for the site. Virtual pets can be adopted, farms can be run, and other social networks – such as Twitter – can be integrated. Another app – the Friend Network Optimizer from SAP – provides information about your network of friends and your own user behavior. You find out how active you and your contacts on Facebook are compared with the Facebook community in general.


To do this, the app works in a similar way to SAP Crystal Presentation Design, which is part of SAP Crystal solutions for business intelligence and can be downloaded free of charge from SAP.info until the end of the year. As the dashboard generator, its task is to extract information from raw data and to visualize it so that it looks good and is easy to understand.

The Friend Network Optimizer works in a similar way by gathering profile information through a Facebook interface and presenting it to users in the style of SAP Crystal Presentation Design. To become familiar with business intelligence software away from the office, you just need to integrate the app into your own Facebook profile.

Read on to see examples and download the app... Facebook meets SAP

SAP To Fight Oracle Damages Claim

Enterprise software vendor SAP has announced that it will defend its interests from a damage claim filed by Oracle.

Oracle claims that it should be paid "billions and billions" of dollars in damages for copyright infringement initiated by the SAP-owned TomorrowNow software servicing company.

SAP, instead, believes that Oracle is entitled to damages worth "tens of millions" of dollars.

SAP To Fight Oracle Damages Claim - ITProPortal.com

SAP's Sybase Unit Partners with HP on BI | CTO Edge

As part of an effort to make it easier for IT organizations to deploy Sybase analytics software on top of HP servers, SAP and HP today rolled out a reference architecture that customers can follow in order to optimize the performance of Sybase’s IQ software.

SAP's Sybase Unit Partners with HP on BI | CTO Edge