BusinessObjects, the Shelfware Killer

Last week I attended the BI2012 conference (recap podcast here) and was fortunate enough to present two sessions, each of which were centered around the different data connectivity options that a user has when connecting to data that doesn't originate in SAP applications. The conference organizers, cognizant that "SAP BI" now includes a whole lot of customers who don't run anything else from SAP (and may, eventually, include a whole lot of people who don't run BusinessObjects either), sought out speakers who could talk about the BOBJ toolset from a more database-agnostic perspective.

Not wanting to waste anyone's time, I warned people upfront that if they were there to find out how to connect to BEx, BICS, BW, BWA or any other SAP-centric data source/connection they may want to move on. I lost quite a few people every time I mentioned this, which was OK, but I can't help think that a lot of SAP customers are missing out on some big opportunities to turn off some other BI solutions that they have in house.

In my first session, I asked how many folks were already running BOBJ. Almost all hands went up. I then asked how many also had, somewhere in their company, another BI solution to support another applications. About half of the hands went up (and I'd wager those that didn't just don't know about what shadow IT has put out there).

In case you haven't heard, the economy is pretty tight these days, so why are companies still paying maintenance on two BI tools when BusinessObjects can almost certainly handle all of their reporting needs? A few possibilities exist.

• Because they don't know they can. A lot of SAP customers probably just bought BOBJ because they were told to, and once in, the account rep had no incentive to encourage them off of their existing tools even though the BusinessObjects family can report off of practically anything. 
• Because it would cost more. Obviously this will depend on what your licensing looks like, but it is probably worth a look. I haven't seen a formal study, but I'd wager that if you took into account the key cost drivers in a switch from BI tool X to BusinessObjects (retraining people, porting content in, eliminated maintenance and support) you'd come out at least even if not better off, with tons of future savings in only having one toolset to support. 
• Because change isn't easy. Even if an organization knows what BOBJ can do, and that it will save them money, sometimes it really isn't organizationally worth the hassle. It's "because we've always done it that way" at it's worst.

So what (legitimate) reasons do people have for having an enterprise reporting solution that doesn't cover their enterprise? Am I crazy?

Of hope and databases

About this time 2 years ago the former GBN was pulled into the broader ASUG user group, and I was selected into the SAP Mentor program. This was really the first time I had been exposed to the broader SAP community (sorry in advance, broader SAP community) and since that time there has been one common theme in every executive keynote that SAP has been involved in. That theme has been HANA.

It isn't that I don't like HANA. I actually really do. I think it has a ton of potential to create real customer value and to eventually substantially lower the total cost of ownership for many companies. Unfortunately for most companies, eventually isn't quite here yet (and hasn't been on any given day for the last couple of years). Has HANA changed some games? Yes. Has it changed the game? Not quite yet.

Wondering why I care so much about discussions surrounding a database technology that I may well never use? Because it comes at the expense of discussing some fantastic, ready-to-use and reasonably-affordable database technologies that I may use. Everyone knows SAP bought Sybase for mobility, but the real jewel of the deal, at least to me, was the opportunity to hurt Oracle where it hurt -- by turning off Oracle database licenses and turning on Sybase database licenses. Unfortunately, it's been very tough to get an SAP executive to talk about Sybase data solutions (except for the occasional throwaway comment) during a keynote since the acquisition. That all changed this morning during BI2012 when the keynote given by Steve Lucas and Timo Elliott included a demo of data being held virtually and in the cloud by Sybase IQ. That in fact carried over to a HANA-specific microforum where Lucas spoke candidly about how the HANA/ASE/IQ technologies fit together into a unified portfolio.

I think SAP did a brilliant thing by finally folding some Sybase products (ASE, IQ, Replication Server, SQL Anywhere) under an umbrella that really genuinely included a product that was developed in-house (HANA). That meant that the people in one database sales organization aren't trying to sell their SAP database products against different SAP database products that happened to fall under a different part of the field sales organization. This gives an SAP account representative the flexibility to actual provide their customer with an optimal solution. Crazy, I know.

SAP stated that it would be the #2 spot in the database market by 2015. HANA alone wasn't going to do that. With an integrated portfolio that includes relational, columnar, mobile, and in-memory options -- and some work in truly integrating them with each other and into their full analytics stack -- I think they may actually have a chance.