Sapphire Conference

I walked back from Sapphire with lots of stories to share and with a great new view of the world. SAP has become very powerful. Sapphire was a power show. Very systematic and absolute seamless arrangment - over 800 seminars in two and half days!!!!
There was information flow everywhere. I tried to keep my eyes and ears open and tried to absorb as much as possible in these Sapphire days. SAP mainly was focussing on MDM, eSOA and Business Objects. There were lots of small companies who did some presentation and were impressive at their booths. Capgemini presence was Huge!!! We had biggest booth and also right place for logo on participants kit. There were almost all big players in Sapphire and came very well prepared. It was very serious participation from everyone - Customers, Consulting partners, SAP, cooks, waiters, bartenders, everyone meaning literally everyone. On Sunday we had internal Capgemini meeting to chalk out the strategy and assigning the responsibility. I was placed under Auto and OS category. Sunday evening was networking meeting and was sponsered by HCL. I thought that it was waste of marketing money from HCL as most of the people who came there for networking meeting never attempted to walk into HCL Booth at all and was busy drinking, eating and enjoying their Sunday evening. Only HCL was allowed to keep the booth open making all their resources to stand in booth loosing the opportunity to meet other customers. I was also surprised that they came up with idea of "Free SAP Upgrade" scheme. Overall, I was skeptical about their approach. Deloitte/Accenture were good. Yash was making good presence in the SAP Market these days and it was evident from their presence in the Sapphire. Though I was expecting some speaker sessions from them.
Personally and professionaly, I think it was great experience. I met Capgemini CTO Andy Mulholland and he was very very impressive. Every minute he talked, I could see the spark and sharpness. He is very knowledgable and it was apparent in every word he was speaking.
One thing was clear that there is lot to catch up. SAP is changing the world in a big way. Earlier IT was used to run and support businesses but the way SAP is positioning themselves is to create new business opportunities using technology. This is giving most of the customers edge over their competitors to get into new product lines, introducing flexible options to their customers and obviously with reduced response time with accurate information.
No one talked about R/3. It was all about new dimension products. Somehow I felt there was NO focus on products like APO. There was lot of coverage for HCM, PLM, CRM, somewhat on SRM but nothing much to cover manufacturing alone.
Monday was very busy and evenings were allowed for all the cosulting companies to offer free cocktails to their customers (current and potential). Me and Vishal went to other place instead of hanging with team. Tuesday evening was Eric Clipton Live and Wednesday evening I flew back to detroit....It was awesome, eye opening experience which I will treasure it for sometime now....as it also gave me opportunity to meet old faces in SAP...I met lot of my friends. And theres always lot to talk when you meet friends after 7-8 yrs!!!!