* Posts by Rob 54

20 publicly visible posts • joined 13 May 2014

World's richest man posts memes as $44b Twitter acquisition veers off course

Rob 54

I am pretty sure that was a parody account and senior Twit jumped in on it, but the the reg author is sharing it as news

Hana-hana-hana: No it's not your dad trying to start a motorboat... It's Northern Gas, renewing its SAP software

Rob 54

I've never seen above 6 in real world, not sure of anyone on 7

However when it comes to FX EVERY decimal point is significant, especially with the volatility and swings of late

We surrender: SAP yields to customers, extends support for Business Suite 7 to 2027

Rob 54

Re: What's next?

BS7 is really a product called ECC 6.0 which has a multitude of different component versions

S/4 is similar that it can be at different component versions

2040 is their current planned end of MAINSTREAM maintenance but I would predict that will be extended at a later time, perhaps for customers on component version XYZ

Hitting Microsoft's metal: SUSE flings Enterprise Linux at SAP HANA on Azure

Rob 54

Not sure what you are referring to as being faster on Wintel ?

SAP HANA DB side will only run on RH or SLES, but yes you can still run the app server on Windows server if you like

Question: How fast is the Windows 10 October 2018 Update rolling out? Answer: Not very

Rob 54

Re: Weirdness with pinging

I had a similar issue on a Lenovo, updated to the latest Intel wifi drivers but the issue remained.

I updated the BIOS and that fixed it, it was a problem with power saving in the NIC, needed updated BIOS to properly support it

AWS elbows Google Cloud aside in fight for SAP HANA customers

Rob 54

Re: How long?

SAP have basically seen the writing on the wall and given up, their partners and co all recommend Amazon these days.

I think they will stick to what they know and not get involved in the cloud infrastructure

SAP hopes to blow the doors off Salesforce with a block of C/4HANA

Rob 54

Re: SAP Update

2025 is the end of extended support on most SAP products like the core ERP and CRM - as per http://support.sap.com/pam

At this time customers can decide to go to a HANA product, stay with existing product with a more expensive support cost (suspect the huge companies will go for this) or ditch SAP support and goto a 3rd party vendor for support (is even a valid option now)

Cannot say I have ever herd SAP putting their prices down, so you are probably correct there ;)

Rob 54

I stand corrected on that point AC :)

Rob 54

Wow a lot of SAP hate here :)

A few corrections...

HANA is actually something originally created by professor SangKyun Cha in Korea and not a MaxDB (MaxDB is poor) clone

The NetWever stack base language us ABAP not ABAB but there are a lot more movements in terms of using OData and Java etc depending on which SAP technology and product line you are talking about

With regards the general hate and comments, these are often based on valid concerns but not as simple as saying 'It's SAPs fault' as these can often relate to a multitude of complex problems with partners/consulting firms etc... Far too many to cover here and not all SAP issues, could be applied to any customer running legacy products or poorly implemented ones

In terms of the article I would agree this is a poor choice of product name, but don't worry as SAP change their product names every few months anyway :)

I do not feel SAP have given much clarity in terms of CRM yet, but the usual thing is for a big announcement from the top and then clarity will follow on

All just my opinions, I am not an employee of SAP or their partners, I am a customer of SAP

SAP is a huge part of our business and we could not have achieved such success without it.

None of this is to say that SAP are perfect and have it all right, far from it - but they are doing their best to adapt and adopt to modern challenges

SAP cofounder admits: Biz goofed on branding, confused customers, depressed staff

Rob 54

Haha, I've no idea.

It makes me chuckle that google responses with 'Did you mean S/4 HANA'?

Rob 54

Re: Don't know if SAP has changed recently.

What product / version of SAP which only recently got updated to unicode?

Sounds awfully ancient as from my experience SAP products have been unicode from early 2000's and for several years SAP have not offered new installations to be non-unicode

I do feel sorry for their support bods having to support so many different mixes of technology, but the theory of this product alignment is to stop all that (in practice this will take several years and things will change along the way)

There is still a long way to go, especially to align the different technology stacks without complex middleware integrations

Are you SAP-py now?! ERP giant overhauls pricing model following indirect access drama

Rob 54

Why the hate?

Perhaps I am being naive here, but this genuinely seems to be moving the correct direction.

My thoughts -

1) Is SAP too expensive at list price = god yes, who could ever actually afford to pay list?

2) If you get caught short will you have to pay out at list = it depends (sales negotiation begins, lawsuit if things get really bad, but who really wants to go legal?)

3) Are SAP trying to do 'the right thing' - yes

4) Are things still too complicated - yes

In my dealing as a SAP customer (both direct customer and via a reseller) the common problem is a lack of clarity. Much like with the software itself SAP have 'baggage' to consider when adjusting their pricing/licensing models

To find clear definitions and an answer other than 'it depends' is often a problem

At the end of the day I want to pay what I believe is a fair price for SAP and I have no intention of deliberately cheating them on license fees

Sure the numbers can be scary, but if you set out with honest intent then I do not see why an open conversation with SAP should be avoided.

We will need to wait a couple of months for the operations on the ground to catch up with the SAP PR machine however

SAP corruption probe: Indication of misconduct in South African public sector deals

Rob 54

'@Iglethal - Fixing their garbage program would require real ethics from a company that has none.'

Really?

Come on now, I am all up for holding SAP to account but can you at least add some context if you are slinging mud

SAP flings out one-hub-to-rule-and-crunch all the data. Yes, a hub

Rob 54
Happy

'McStravick did acknowledge that describing something that does the opposite of bringing data together in one place a hub might be confusing. '

FEAR NOT!

The SAP marketing bods will rename this several times during its lifecycle

Fancy talking to SAP about your indirect licensing concerns? Straw poll says no

Rob 54

Re: Overlicensing?

Depends on what type of agreement you have in place, and it's typically easier if there is a new license deal to be done at the same time.

Oracle, SAP, IBM: They're rubbish and charge you billions for Excel, says man

Rob 54

Our MD used to say 'the company use SAP as an invoice printer'

This was very true because they did not understand how to unlock the value, thankfully this has now changed, but I expect this is still true of many businesses.

Rob 54

Re: IE 5

Don't understand? Did I miss the joke alert icon...You cannot use SAP without IE5 ???

http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1672817

Look over here! SAP unveils big data HANA update

Rob 54

My two cents

SAP face many challenges while encouraging uptake... very few companies will jump in as early adopters, the cost was originally prohibitive, renegotiating contracts takes time, existing hosting arrangements wont meet the min specs but are typically long term commitments with datacentres etc.

My organisation will be replatforming onto HANA as our core DB in 1.5 years.

The traditional SQL just doesn't cut the mustard anymore, we are pushing the systems well beyond their capabilities and need a better DB to achieve the real time results people expect these days.

IMHO SAP bashing is easy to do, they are far from a perfect company but do have some solid products, despite some having a track record of borked deployments by partners, but the thousands of successful deployments never make the press.

Barclays, Halifax and Tesco still being gnawed by POODLE

Rob 54

Re: El Reg is not vulnerable....

"I still see no excuse for ignoring good/best practice here on El Reg."

I agree, in real terms this would not take much and it sets a good example.

Botched SAP billing system helps Npower reach No 1 on gripes list

Rob 54
Thumb Up

I hate to see SAP being blamed as default, yes it is BIG, complex and can often be frustrating.

But nine times out of ten the problems are self created by people failing to appreciate these facts, doing silly projects without the understanding, expertise or resources required.

Nobody ever mentions the countless successful implementations, when they fail they fail BIG time and get a lot of press/comments.