No customer left behind, SAP's Klein tells users angered by cloud-only decision

Facing users angered by SAP's decision to introduce its "newest" innovations only in the cloud, the German software giant's CEO promised not to leave any customers behind in his mission to move them off-prem. Christian Klein fielded questions from the German-speaking SAP user group DSAG at its 2023 Annual Congress in Bremen …

[aerogems]

Seems Somewhat Reasonable

So, whatever AI bullshit SAP is trying to peddle won't necessarily be as robust for on-prem users. I doubt that'll be any great loss, and some may see it as a feature because it means none of their data will be slurped up into this AI model, meaning no chance of it accidentally being leaked. It is at least possible that on-prem users could use their own data to train the AI. It may not be as "effective" given the smaller dataset, but it could be done.

[Doctor Syntax]

Have I got this right?:

1. We're not going to leave you behind

2. We're going to leave you behind

3. If we leave you behind at least we're not going to slurp your data to feed the AI

4. If we don't leave you behind we're going to slurp your data to feed the AI

[sketharaman]

Jawohl!

[msknight]

He won't leave customers behind...

...they'll leave.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are a SAP customer, you are already doomed in any case

Not only do you get locked in (breaking up is hard to do), but you also get the benefit of some of the strictest licensing terms available (look up SAP v Diageo to learn about the concept of indirect software licensing).

So, little unimportant things like where your data is stored, service performance and security will always come second to feeding the beast through license fees.

Disclaimer - this is my personal opinion and I have no financial or other interest in SAP or any of its competitors.

AC, because...

[aerogems]

Re: If you are a SAP customer, you are already doomed in any case

It could be worse... they could be using Oracle. Where the SOP seems to be to just start off negotiations by telling every customer they're not in possession of enough licenses, but even though their boss will be furious with them, they'll cut you a break and offer you some extra licenses for a discounted fee. Of course they never bothered to do any kind of actual audit, the whole thing's a bluff aimed at getting companies to just give them money to go away.

Do not get me wrong, I always tell people that SAP is the worst ERP on the planet, except for all the rest. There are many (many, many, many, many... you get the idea) things about it I do not like, but it's still generally better than most of the rest I've seen.

I also heard a good one about Aptean recently, where they're actually charging customers to decommission their ERP. Got to admire the chutzpa required to make that demand.

[sketharaman]

Re: If you are a SAP customer, you are already doomed in any case

I don't know what exactly but it says something that SAP gets away with this practice all the time. Not only did it win SAP v. Diageo but it pulled a similar one against Microsoft in ca. 1998. Microsoft built a VB-based indirect materials procurment portal with access to all of its 30K employees. Once the portal processed the Purchase Request, it handed over the approved PR to SAP MM to raise the PO. Microsoft had a 2K user license of SAP and SAP wanted Microsoft to buy up licenses for all the 30K employees who indirectly accessed SAP. IIRC, the case was settled out of court and Microsoft agreed to cough up for 5K more licenses of SAP.

[elsergiovolador]

Idea

Hey Jake, you there?

Martin! What's up?

Do you remember that software we sold you, that powers your business?

Yes, how could I not! It's brill!

Right, so we think that you should run it on our computer.

Why?

For your own good. We will make sure it is secure and runs well and charge you a monthly fee for the pleasure.

But it has been running just fine!

Well, about that. It would be a shame if it suddenly stopped (wink wink) or someone hacked it (triple wink).

If you put it that way, where do I sign up!? Oh and how much?

Give us all your data and we will tell you how much you can afford.

That's so brilliant, Martin! I always wanted you to f*ck me really hard.

[aerogems]

Re: Idea

You forgot to have Jake asking if he should just drop his pants right then and there or if they'll schedule a time.

[Nate Amsden]

at least they are honest now?

Never having used SAP, or any ERP myself anyway(that I know of at least).. the bit in the article where they say they can only do their "AI" stuff if they can access everyone's data. That is easiest "in the cloud" where they control it. Wonder if there are options for customers (for example) to host "in the cloud" with SAP but NOT grant access for SAP to data mine their ERP data. Or if customers even know whether or not that is/would be happening. (in so many cases the company doing the data mining often claims the data is anonymized or otherwise "safe", but it seems in several of those cases that ends up not being true, whether or not it was done intentionally or not).

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: at least they are honest now?

It's anonymised but there's this bunch of data about the Acme Mk 10...

[MachDiamond]

I have found

The one thing I know is that if my hardware is on-site, if there is a problem, I can throw money at it to get things fixed. I've had computers lose vast quantities of magic smoke and needed to get out the reserve plastic to go to a shop, buy a replacement computer at full price and then stay up all night to get things configured and running again. I've also had things happen with outside suppliers where I'm completely in the dark as to what happened, what's happening now and when I can expect things to be all better (if they will be). There wasn't even a way to talk to the outside supplier and no way to throw money at them to get me running again. This is why I'd never outsource something like accounting software for a "cloud solution". Murphy will step up and make sure something bad happens when I'm trying to get my taxes prepared (at the last minute). The penalties and fees will have paid several times over for any 'savings' there might have been going to an online 'solution'. Not worth the agro. Lots of backups in different places which is simple to do and off the shelf hardware that can do lots of things without relying on anybody else or a network connection. I am sorta screwed if the power is off, but I could throw money at that problem too and make it go away. The internet, not so much.

[Lonpfrb]

Old school fear uncertainty and doubt

Knowing that the management know next to nothing about AI except that "it's the Future" gives FOMO leverage to push the gullible to a deal they don't understand.

Actually the standard enhancement concepts have enabled a standard data model with customer enhancements in additional structures or tables. It's easy to ignore the enhancements and train the machine learning on standard.

Further SAP has designed the Graph data model with simplification and interoperability in mind so an API-centric model is available too. Scalable too, with on-prem and PCE workloads remote over OSS.

This seems like a heap of avoidable stress and bad press that has technical mitigation available now. Just data access/privacy to fix..

Or could it be grasping at straws to please (potential) investors...

We're SaaS! Yeah!

[MJI]

Probably OK until

SAP buys the company you are using.

Remember Sybase?

[Zia Hassan]

Obviously.....

It's obvious, who would buy the new Cloud software if innovations continue on older systems.

Do you find Apple releasing new features on older phones? Quite the contrary, they (apparently) slow down the older fones to soft-force you to buy the new versions (that's evil man!).

Good luck to Chris & SAP, keep innovating.