SAP Leading the HR / HCM / HRMS Space

Another great analyst review today, this time by Forrester acknowledging SAP as the market leader for multinationals with the mySAP ERP Human Capital Management (HCM) application. A quote that I really enjoyed reading is from Paul Hamerman, VP at Forrester:

“Recent development efforts have improved strategic process support, including performance and succession planning. Usability, which has long been a weakness for SAP, is receiving considerable attention with initiatives underway to extend HR application usability include Adobe interactive forms and Microsoft Office (Duet).”

It's great to see the fruit of our work in ERP and NetWeaver development, especially for those who spearheaded the form development in HCM in the area of Personnel Change Requests (e.g. new position form, transfer form, firing forms...) and Recruitment (e.g. requisition, hiring, candidate evaluations...). These were the killer scenarios that got customers excited both on the business and IT side.

SAP Is The Global Leader In HR Management SystemsThe Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q3 2006

The Forrester Wave™: Human Resource Management Systems, Q3 2006

technorati tags:SAP, HRMS, HCM, Adobe, Forrester

The State of Java Development at SAP - 2001/2006

About 6 years ago, SAP embraced the J2EE framework via the acquisition of In-Q-My application server that later became one of the two (ABAP and Java) core engines of NetWeaver. Back then, this is how the press highlighted the event:

• Sun said that by adding Java Web application support, such as JavaServer Pages (JSP), Java Servlet technology, and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) products, hosting providers will give customers more options to develop and deploy interoperable Java Web applications and services.
  

• German software developer SAP's In-Q-My Technologies subsidiary said that SAP selected its application server as the Java technology platform for the mySAP.com e-business platform. The In-Q-My Application Server supports J2EE standards, which the company said will simplify the development, deployment, and integration of clients' corporate applications.

JavaOne: Corporate software vendors jump for Java

Fast forward 5-6 years later, Gartner's analysts today praised SAP's announcement of Java EE 5 compatibility adead of main rivals with the following key statements:

• "SAP's achievement of Java EE 5 compatibility demonstrates its renewed commitment to standards and reinforces the industry's commitment to Java. It also supports SAP's strategy do develop its "ecosystem."
• "The technical preview is significant because it shows how serious SAP is about promoting its technology for use outside SAP applications."
• "SAP prospects and other vendors: Expect increased acceptance of NetWeaver technology as a stand-alone middleware platform during the next two years. It should be included in future lists of choices for application platform options."
• "...in the short term, SAP Java EE 5 is mainly of interest to independent software and technology providers, which SAP is wooing to its NetWeaver platform. SAP is competing with BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and others to be the primary service-orientedarchitecture-enabling infrastructure and platform provider. While many customers will use NetWeaver as the platform for SAP's applications and services, this move to standardize and improve the platform is clearly designed to entice (and impress) these independent providers."

Gartner's analyst report is available for download on ther site

technorati tags:Java, SAP, JEE5, Analysts, NetWeaver

The State Of Web Development 2006/2007

A report came out claiming to be the largest survey of web developers (5,000) in history. Flash, Blogs, podcasts, AJAX, server platforms, content management systems, industry best practices, and CSS layouts are just some of the areas analyzed in depth in this report.

http://www.sitepoint.com/reports/reportwebsurvey2006/freepreview.php

The report expects Flash usage to decline from 39.85% (Ajax is currently at 30.03%) to 23.36% (with Ajax making that up in the form of a jump to 45.77%). On the question: "which technologies are you or your organization planning to use in your future web projects (next 12 months)?" syndication (RSS/Atom), blogs and podcasts are coming on top. The summary ends with creative responses to "what the next big thing on the web" will be. Here are some highlights:

• Pure interaction with the user: giving the user the chance to style a site to his needs, save those preferences and have them ready every time he visits a site. Users will be able to interact with the content without the webmaster or designer having to constantly monitor everything in the background.
• Paradigm shift: you will not search the Web for information. You will define what you want, and the Web will collect it for you. Example: I, the customer, will define that I want to buy a screen. This info will be distributed/collected by potential vendors. They will then present me, the customer, with the information that will enable me to purchase their products.
• I believe that now that people are getting faster Internet connections, things like video that are beginning to take off now will be a big part of e-commerce sites and service sites. It is a great way to try and earn trust with the customer as you can show your face –chat to them and let them know who you are.

Widgets, Gadgets, Portlets, iViews - What's the Difference?

By now, I believe the industry was able again to confuse customers and end-users on what these things called widgets are, and how different they are from the previous incarnation of portlets and iViews that portal vendors offer. To add to that confusion even more, there's a recent announcement from Google on their release of Gadgets:

"Formerly trapped largely in Google Desktop, more than 1200 Google Gadgets (widgets) were set free today for embedding in any web page."

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Google Does The Mashup Dance

Here's how I look at what's a widget and what's not, and what makes it different from gadgets, portlets, iViews, etc. First, let's see what they have in common: small, portable, omnipresent information, personalizable, relies on HTML, JS (scripting) and CSS. One of the key difference is that real widgets require a widget engine or client runtime that runs on your desktop (it's what gets downloaded from Yahoo! Konfabulator, or comes with the Mac OS X). For all the rest widget-like incarnations, that "engine" is the browser and obviously fairly limited in capabilities. The advantage is zero-footprint (for IT), but in today's age users are so accustomed to download / run client software on their desktop (e.g. TextPad, Google's Picasa, Instant Messengers...)

Now that widgets have an engine on the desktop, this comes with quite powerful capabilities, desktop-like features of drag-and-drop, fading effects, icons on the system tray, "heads-up display", extended preferences and configurations. However, the best of all is the design (e.g. transparencies, alpha channels and blending, PNG images, etc.) that fuels that delight / emotional factor towards widgets. For comparison, when you see any of the 120 Google Gadgets, they're just plain ugly -- it's like looking at the "bones" of a widget without the real "muscle" (i.e. widget engine) and "skin" (i.e. design). Below are 3 examples of weather widgets taken from Google's directory:

However, there is hope for gadgets, portlets and iViews. It's in what I foresee as a mash-up scenario, where the user decides to take a web snippet (or gadget, portlets and iViews) and apply it as a hybrid widget. To be more concrete, take the following scenario from Linked-in, the popular networking site. Inviting people can be a pain, filling out all these numerous fields, email addresses, invitation templates, etc. They do have a "gadget" on their Home tab called Quick Invite which has only 3 required fields: First Name, Last Name, Email address, and an Invite button. Let's say the user can take that gadget to the desktop by using the widget engine. With such hybrid widget, one can always enter quick invites even if the user does not have a browser up-and-running, or he/she is not logged-on to the Linked-in website. Add some desktop spice, and imagine drag-and-drop of Outlook or web contact info into the Quick Invite widget and prefilling the fields automatically.

Long live Widgets and their cousin Hybrids!

technorati tags:widgets, gadgets, portlets, iViews

On Software Imagineering

Traditional software lifecycles required long phases for product definition, design, development / implementation and release / rollout (e.g. Microsoft Vista, mySAP ERP). These assumptions have been challenged by hosted software providers, perpetual BETA services like Google, and the guiding principles of Web 2.0. That doesn't mean software lifecycles are history, as you find people in this "new world" responsible for the "old jobs" but in new ways how to make this work faster, with better ROI and desirability by the users served.

Software imagineering is not a new discipline or methodology, but evolution of software imagining / definition and engineering / architecture in an era when time-to-market is as important as the quality / robustness of the service offered. The term imagineering has been coined since 1957, after Walt Disney Imagineering was founded. Taking the basic principles of Disney and applying them in the software lifecycle phases, following user-centric design with Web 2.0 principles in mind, is what Software Imagineering can be about.

Why Software Imagineering is different or better? The best example of what it takes to be an Imagineer I have found is in the IDEO method of delivering innovation that simultaneously examines product desirability, viability and feasibility.

Imagineers are the ones who can collaboratively (dis)cover the:

• Human needs (desirability) by asking questions like is it useful, is this the simplest solution to get the job done, does the solution show empathy for end-users?
• Business needs (viability) by asking questions like what is the ROI, does it make us profitable, what is the business case?
• Technical needs (feasibility) by asking questions like do we have the right resources and skill set to implement this, does this fit into the current architecture, how can the solution be configured / supported / maintained?

SAP is placing tremendous focus on this way of thinking regarding innovation and design, also evident externally with Hasso Plattner's Institute of Design at Stanford University (see press coverage). Teams and imagineers are now tackling the design and engineering phases while constantly iterating, (re)designing, staying in touch with users and understanding the way they use the software. I can speak from a personal experience, making a career shift from an Engineering role within Development into Strategy role within Product Definition has also made a world of difference in how I "imagineer" the new solutions at SAP.

In closing, interesting takeaways from a Vice President of Products at a flagship Web 2.0 company -- Sixapart -- that resonates well with everything said above on imagineeering:

• Nothing's better than seeing a user in context (My GOD, that's how they use our product?)
• End-users aren't the only ones that matter (Can't ignore the other actors in the value chain)
• Prove it with a prototype (Especially when you're breaking new ground)
• It's the same old "product definition / management / development" story (Except things are faster and cheaper)
  

Link to Michael Sippey's presentation, a courtesy of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association.

technorati tags:imagineering, engineering, design, prototyping, Web2.0, user-centric

About Project Muse @ SAP

Muse is a code name at SAP for project that is targeting net new business users and installed customer base with the following mega deliverables:

1. The new NetWeaver Business Client

• A rich, service-oriented client that dramatically improves experience and efficiency on the user's desktop.
• Build on top of state-of-the-art UI technology that can flexibly consume portal (EP) services and application content directly from back-end systems.
• As such, it represents a new breed of clients that bridge the gap of today's thick clients (e.g. SAPGUI) and thin HTML clients, while catering to the high demands of business users and future Rich Internet Applications (RIA) like the ones that will be based on Adobe Apollo or Microsoft WPF

2. The new simplified and task-oriented mySAP ERP content

• The role-based ERP content and line-of-business applications will be accompanied with work / task lists that provide insight into the transactional systems and objects (e.g. the example above shows employment data worklist as a starting point for the HR-Employee Workcenter)
• UIs are based on Web Dynpro Technology. Main mySAP ERP 2005 UIs and user interaction will be simplified using a floor plan and building block methodology
• Harmonization and consolidation of UIs and UI technologies is being centered on Web Dynpro. This will deprecate various UI technologies. However, deprecated UI technologies like Dynpros (on SAPGUI) will still continue to work!

As seen in the picture above, the NetWeaver Business Client handles the entire shell and canvas instances that get presented to the user. Inside the canvas part, the application content and UI from mySAP ERP system is simplified into guided activities and object instance floorplans (i.e. transactions to create, change, update various objects) and reports.

technorati tags:SAP, ERP2005, Muse, NWBC, RIA, SAPGUI, NetWeaver, End-users