Marc Andreessen and Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader: Separated at Birth?

Marc Andreessen and Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader: separated at birth? You be the judge ...

The second picture is Sebastian Shaw, the actor who played Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) in the first three Star Wars movies (Episodes 4-6, otherwise known as "the Star Wars movies that didn't suck").

Firefox MASSIVE FAIL - frequent, incompatible upgrades and instability

For years, I have been a dedicated Firefox user.  Before Chrome, Firefox was a browser that really

met my needs.  Firefox was faster and more flexible than Internet Explorer.  Firefox was innovative, supporting tabs, add-ons, standards, and multiple platforms.  Over the years, I customized my Firefox environment to meet my needs, with add-ons that made my many tabs manageable, that enabled my news curation on Twitter, that remembered my many user names and passwords.

I've retained Internet Explorer, since many corporate apps I use are supported only on IE or otherwise don't work well on Firefox.  But my main browser use has been with Firefox until recently.

I'm sad to say that this post marks my final use of Firefox.  I'm switching to Chrome finally, with IE for some corporate apps.  This is not a sudden decision of mine; rather, this is a decision I've been putting off for a while in the hopes that things would get better with Firefox, but things just keep getting worse and worse.  What are my complaints?

1. I rely on Firefox add-ons to achieve productivity and for their many innovations.  Yet, the good folks at Mozilla have decided to frequently update Firefox and to do so in ways that are not upwardly compatible.  Firefox updates unpredictably break add-ons on which I rely.  With each update, and updates now seem to come about once per month, some add-on is broken.  You might argue that the add-ons I need are not likely to be available on Chrome, but more and more of the Firefox add-ons I need are not maintained with the same cadence as Firefox.  I think the add-on makers are demoralized and are giving up.  You might also argue that I could find other add-ons to replace my favorites, but who has the time?  And, anyway, you just know that no add-ons will keep up with the Mozilla cadence.  If you are going to that update cadence, you need many things to be upwardly compatible. :(  At the same time, Google has found a way to do frequent Chrome updates while keeping updates compatible enough to keep Chrome add-ons working.
2. Firefox has become a slow, buggy, bloated product with little apparent innovation.  With all these releases, you'd think you'd see tremendous changes from release to release.  Instead, other than breaking the add-ons, I can't see any improvements in user experience or functionality from Firefox 20 to Firefox 23.  These days, it seems like most of the innovation is in the Chrome ecosystem.  In the past, the innovation seemed to be partly in the Mozilla team, and partly in the add-on ecosystem, but that add-on ecosystem has all but ground to a halt.
3. Back to Firefox being slow and buggy.  At least once per day, Firefox becomes unresponsive; sometimes it recovers after a few minutes, but more often it just hangs and must be forced to shut down.  Firefox has become very unstable.
4. But Firefox is also slow.  I know that some recent projects focus on Firefox performance and some recent benchmarks show Firefox performance improving, but that is not my experience.  In fact, the more tabs you have open, and the longer the pages you view in Firefox, the noticeably slower it gets.  And then it crashes.  And takes a VERY long time to restart.

In the end, though, the killer for me is Firefox's constant upgrades blowing away its crowning jewel - the add-on ecosystem.  Without add-ons, Firefox is just another browser.  Stacked up against Chrome, Firefox lacks adequate support for Android, lacks stability, drags slowly on start-up (especially on restarting after crashing), and shows little or no innovation.  Mozilla needs to slow down the upgrade cadence, attempt some bigger and more innovative projects, support the add-on ecosystem to be ready with updates whenever the browser gets updated, and find a new reason to exist beyond fighting the bygone bogeyman of Microsoft hegemony.

What do you think?  Do you agree or disagree with me?  Let me know by leaving comments below ...

Database Billboards: Times and Cars and Oracle Competitors Gone By

Database Billboards: Times and Cars and Oracle Competitors Gone By

Driving up or down 101 these days, you can't avoid the new SiliconView billboard - it's a double-sided electronic billboard, so you can see it whether you are going north- or south-bound, and most of us on 101 are driving slowly enough that we get to see several iterations of the billboard content as we sit in traffic.

A few weeks ago, the billboard started displaying ads with that distinctive SAP orange/amber/mustard/whatever color, drawing my eye to something that normally just existed in the background.  Yes - it was an SAP ad!  That's odd, I thought - very few business decision makers for large SAP-style prospects drive up and down 101.  Wouldn't it be better to put something up in San Francisco airport, like Oracle does, or in San Francisco?

Then I realized - this billboard was advertising SAP HANA. Could it be?  Could SAP be making the same silly mistake made by so many other database competitors over the years?  Could SAP be falling into the same trap sprung on IBM, Ingres, and Informix?

Yes, it appeared that SAP was getting into the chest-thumping, one-upsmanship game played by Oracle's database competitors so wastefully in the past.  Those companies started focusing on Oracle, rather than on Oracle's customers' needs.  It was more important to Informix to try to tweak Larry's buttons than it was for them to properly account for their software in the channel, or to do a better job meeting customers' needs.

As I was thinking about writing this blog, I looked for images of those older billboards.  If you have any images (especially IBM or Ingres billboards), please post a link in the comments below.  I was able to find online only Informix billboards.

That last billboard was the one Informix displayed as the company was in tatters, falling apart from its latest scandal.  After that, no more billboards (from Informix).

Did these billboards help Informix beat Oracle?  Did these billboards focus Informix's employees on the goal (better serving customers)?  Did these billboards help recruit and/or demoralize the best developers and others at Oracle?

No.

SAP HANA is a product that has a great deal of potential, as I and other Enterprise Irregulars have written in the past.  However, in conversations with SAP HANA customers and experts, there are still significant issues to be overcome before this becomes a worthy competitor to Oracle - issues in cost, stability, scalability, standards support, openness to a third party ecosystem, availability of complementary solutions, and availability of reasonably priced expert resources.  Hopefully, SAP is focusing its R&D investments on this issues, and on being a platform for a new kind and new generation of in-memory applications rather than the RDBMS-focused applications of the 1990's, even while SAP marketing participates in what is perhaps just harmless competition and good-natured rivalry.

However, I hope SAP will remember that Highway 101 is littered with the burned out wreckage of SAP HANA's predecessors who took Oracle on directly in the marketing arena, rather than delivering more value to customers.  In fact, SAP even owns one of those defunct database companies itself ...

Essential Android Apps for Business

I have been an Android user ever since the first day the first Motorola Droid was available for Verizon back in 2009.  Over the years, I've accumulated some experience using Android on phones and tablets, and certain apps have made this experience better for me at work.  Here's my list of essential Android apps for business - let me know in the comments below if you have any other suggestions.  By the way - these are all FREE apps.

This list reflects the way I work, and your style of working may require different apps.  I have a lot of meetings (including conference calls and WebEx sessions), travel a lot (locally, domestically, and internationally), and need to view and edit a lot of documents.  I spend a lot of time with customers, have a quota, and need access to the corporate intranet.  I write a lot of Microsoft Office documents, and read and write hundreds of e-mails per day.

Google built-in apps

Let's start with the standard Google apps, most or all of which come pre-installed on most devices.  Not all Google apps are equally useful for business, but these are all quite helpful.

Calendar Widget: My most useful business app.  This widget comes built in with your Android device.  My home page on my phone is pretty much a nearly fully-screen calendar, plus Google Voice search, a folder for mail apps, a folder for navigation destinations I use a lot (like home and work), a folder for phone numbers I use a lot, and a link to a flashlight app.  By the way, you can also edit which apps show up at the bottom of each Android screen - I like phone, Chrome, Settings, and the Camera, since I use those frequently.  I hardly ever use any other page on my phone.
Chrome: Many older Android devices come with a browser that predated Chrome.  Chrome is now the default browser on Android devices.  It is stable, fast, and has some nice features (see Chrome to Phone).
Chrome to Phone: Chrome to Phone allows you to send web pages from Chrome on your PC or Mac to your phone.  Let's say you're looking at a hotel web site on your laptop and want to send it to your phone to have the address (for giving directions in the cab) or the phone (for checking to confirm your reservation) - Chrome to Phone to the rescue.  Since I often use just my phone in meetings, I often use Chrome to Phone to send reference web pages to my phone in advance.
Drive: Drive replaced Google Docs.  You can use Google Drive to edit word processing documents and spreadsheets, as well as to view and share presentation documents and files across devices or with other people.  As long as you have a network connection, Google Drive is a useful tool.
Gmail: Sometimes you need to send yourself information - or deal with personal business while in a meeting.  Manage your Gmail accounts with this app.

Goggles: Google Goggles may be the Google app that has the most unrealized potential of any Google app.  Goggles works well for QR and bar code scans, searching for information on a company by photographing its logo, and a few other applications.  Where it falls down, however, is in its most potentially useful area for business - business card scanning.  I've never successfully scanned a business card with Google Goggles.  Worst of all, it doesn't even work with Google business cards.
Mail: Android devices come with a second e-mail app that connects with Exchange servers to send and receive corporate e-mail, set and receive calendar appointments and meetings, and access the corporate directory.  If your company, like most, uses Exchange Server for mail and calendar, this app is indispensable.
Maps (and Navigation): When heading to a meeting, this app is a great way to get directions, check traffic, and save places ("star" them) for future reference.  If I'm going to some exotic foreign location, I often scope out sights and places to see, save them as favorites, and then use Google Maps to walk from one to another.  You can get driving, walking, and public transportation directions with the navigation mode, which does turn-by-turn directions.

MyTracks: MyTracks is an app that tracks your travels on GPS.  You can use MyTracks to trace the route you walked from a parking space to a meeting, so you can find your way back later.  You can save any pathway with MyTracks, really useful for retracing your steps particularly when in a strange city.

Search (and Google Now, and Voice Search): Google Search is an essential app (and home screen widget).  Google Search not only surpasses Siri in voice search, but also includes Google Now, one of the most innovative mobile apps available.  Google Now checks your calendar to see what you have coming up, and tells you when it is time to leave based on traffic.  It tells you about any delays to upcoming flights, whether in cities you are in or will be in soon, sports teams you care about, and much more.
Translate: Helpful for translating web pages, e-mail messages, and phrases.  If you want to add a thank you phrase to a message, read an article written in a foreign trade journal, or figure out if you're at the right restaurant, Google Translate is a must have app.
Voice: Google Voice is a great app for staying in touch, as well as for making cheap international calls.  You can retrieve messages using a web interface while on the road - most are even transcribed for you automatically, allowing you to get your voice mail via text message, e-mail, or web browser.  While not traveling, Google Voice can ring your cell phone and work phone (multiple phones at your choice) for in-bound phone calls.  Very handy.

Other useful Android apps:

Adobe Reader: Open and read PDF files with the authentic app from Adobe.
AK Notepad: Simple way to take notes during meetings.
Alarm Clock Plus: In my opinion, the best alarm clock to use, particularly when traveling.  Very flexible way to set multiple alarms, including in advance.
Amazon Kindle: Another good way to read PDF files.  Also useful for reading other kinds of documents sent wirelessly to your Android device.
AnyConnect: Cisco VPN access to corporate intranet from the road.
ASTRO File Manager: Astro is like Windows Explorer for your Android device.  You can see, open, and manage all your files.  Especially useful for finding that attachment you just downloaded.

Concur: If your company, like mine, uses Concur for expense reporting, this mobile app allows you to take note of any expense while traveling by taking a photo of the receipt and uploading the image.  Very helpful for getting those expense reports in in a timely manner.
Dictionary: Sometimes you run into a word you don't really know - this is a handy app for looking up the definition of a word.
DroidRecord: There are lots of times when you need to record a meeting - in compliance with all laws and ethics.  DroidRecord is the app to record these meetings for future reference.Evernote: Some meetings require more sophisticated notetaking, including words, drawings, and photos (screen shots of PowerPoints is a lot more efficient than trying to type it all in or take notes on a presentation you won't get until later).  Evernote is a cross-platform app that works on many devices (not just Android devices), and allows you to sync notes across them for future reference.

GasBuddy: GasBuddy helps you find gas stations when you're driving around.  Plus, you can find the best price when you need it, and it connects to Google Navigate to get you turn-by-turn directions to the gas station of your choice.
Kingston Office: I prefer Kingston Office to other Microsoft Office-compatible document editors.  It's free and works well.
Magnificient Magnifier HD: Great little app for magnifying anything small you can't easily read, including magnifying, lighting up the item, and taking a picture.  Very handy for things like serial numbers, which are maddeningly small for folks my age.
Okta: If your company uses Okta for single sign-on, this app can be set up by your IT folks to give you convenient access to everything from everywhere.
PDANet: A lot of carriers charge a monthly fee for using your phone as a hotspot or for tethering.  With PDANet, you can use your cell phone's data plan over a Bluetooth or micro-USB cable to get network connectivity on your laptop if you don't have a cellular modem for your computer.  The free version of PDANetcan be used to access any non-secure web site (http) or Internet connection (this works for Outlook for most companies!).  For a small, one-time fee ($20), you can also access secure connections (https).

RealCalc: Great scientific calculator.  Good for most business calculations.  For you financial geek types, there are calculators compatible with your HP-41C if you need one.
Salesforce Mobile: Just about everyone uses Salesforce.com for CRM these days, and Salesforce Mobile gives you a great way to use it from anywhere.
Skype: So many people use Skype to stay in touch, that this app is indispensable.  If you use Verizon, you'll need this version of Skype instead.  Skype may be the best Microsoft app ever!
Stopwatch & Timer: Ever need to time a presentation, to make sure you don't run out of time during a speaking slot?  Good for timing demos, presentations, or anything else.

Swype: Not available on the Google Play store.  Google Swype revolutionized text input on mobile devices.  If you have trouble typing on the small, on-screen keyboards, or if you think you can't give up your Blackberry, you'll love Swype.  Seriously, I was a HUGE Blackberry user, and Swype allowed me to type two or three times faster and more accurately than I ever could on a Blackberry keypad.  However, if you get Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, there is a built-in keyboard replacement that uses the same approach as Swype, so Swype's days may be numbered.
TeslaLED: You just need a flashlight sometimes, and this one works on just about every device I've ever tried.
TripIt: Organize all your travel info, if you fly a lot.
WebEx: I do a lot of web and teleconferences, most of them on WebEx.  This app allows me to join in on any WebEx conference from anywhere.  I can't present using this app, but I can view the web conference.  I've used this in airports, my car, and many other places where I just couldn't conveniently use my laptop.
Where's My Droid: Some Droid devices come with a "find my phone" app - this app is for the rest of us.  Easily locate your device when you've mislaid it.  Keep your phone secure with a password, regardless, for those rare times when you may have actually lost your phone.  Ask your IT shop if they can remotely wipe and disable your phone if it is really lost.
Wifi Analyzer: Find the best WiFi signal when you have a choice.  Of course, also useful for setting up your WiFi at home or in the office.
Wikipedia: Sometimes, you just have to look things up.  Of course, you can always do this just using your browser if you prefer.

Missing:

I still haven't found two free apps I'd love to have - a great business card scanner and a document scanner (including optical character recognition - OCR).

Summary

Some folks love their iOS devices, and some won't give up their Blackberries, but I love Android.  Android has great voice input, Swype, widgets on the home screen, great integration with Google Apps, and all these great free apps.  Let me know if you have other favorites or your thoughts on this list in the comments area below.  Enjoy!

Steve Ballmer and Uncle Fester: Separated at Birth?

Steve Ballmer and Uncle Fester: separated at birth? You be the judge ...

That's Steve Ballmer on the left, in case you were wondering, and then both the original Uncle Fester (as played by Jackie Coogan) and the more modern Uncle Fester as played by Christopher Lloyd ...

Dave Duffield and Bob Barker: Separated at birth?

The great Bob Barker and the great Dave Duffield: separated at birth? You be the judge ...

What I did this weekend instead of Twitter and Blogging

I have been thinking about what to say in this toast ever since Adriana and Jasen told us they were engaged. How do you capture all your hopes and advice, all your memories and dreams, in just a few words?

Every father has fears and hopes. Will my child grow up to be happy? Will I be a better father than mine? Will my daughter love me? Will she do well in school? Will she meet a good man someday? Will she want to have children? Will she enjoy life and pass on a good background to the next generation?

As I look around this room, and see all the love and happiness, all my fears melt away. Jasen and Adriana are such a good match. I've seen them together so in love and so in tune with each other. I'd like to thank Jasen's parents and his family for doing such a good job raising such a wonderful man. Thank you to all the family and friends who came from out of town or even out of the country. Thank you to my mother for showing me how to be a good parent. And to my lovely wife, the most beautiful mother of the bride in history, thank you for all your love, all your trust, and all the wonderful years we've had and will have together.

On a day like this, you also remember all the things that led to this moment. I remember the first time I saw Adriana, the first gift I gave her, the first word she taught me in Korean, the first time I dropped her off at school, the first time I moved her into her own place, her first soccer game, her first flute lesson, the first time I met Jasen, and the first time Emma came to stay at our house. I also remember the first time I saw your mother, how much you helped us when mommy was in the hospital to give birth to Joshua, and whenever we needed anything. You and Jasen are so helpful, open, smart, and positive.

To Adriana and Jasen, I'd like to share the lessons of two decades of a successful marriage. Be slow to anger and quick to forgiveness. Take out the wedding video on your anniversary each year to remember how beautifully you started your official life together. Come visit your old parents often, and feel free to drop off the kids every once in a while when they need to be spoiled a little.

We love you so much, and look forward to many more wonderful memories together. Please, everyone, raise your glasses in a toast to the bride and groom. May you live to one hundred and twenty years in love, peace, and happiness. Mazel tov!

Can SAP be the #2 database vendor by 2015? [Guest Post]

Note: This is a guest post by John Appleby (@applebyj) of BlueFin Solutions. Opinions are his (but I value his opinions!).

Last week 150 people travelled to Boston to listen to SAP talk about their future focus. There was a lot of talk about cloud, muted by the fact that SAP have just acquired HCM cloud vendor SuccessFactors and therefore are unable to talk about the acquisition until it is completed. But their in-memory technology, HANA, was also in centre frame.

And during the conference, SAP senior executive Steve Lucas announced that he intends SAP to be the #2 database vendor by 2015. It wasn't a throwaway comment and hyperbole is not Steve's way. He was clear on who this meant overtaking and clear on this difficulty of this journey. But is this realistic, or just pie in the sky?

For those who don't completely understand: SAP HANA is a next-generation database. At a 30,000ft level it can do anything that Oracle, IBM or Microsoft can do, but hundreds or thousands of times faster, because it runs in the main memory of a computer system rather than on slow spinning disks. I've used it and it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Why doesn't SAP HANA have deeper market penetration?

Put simply it is because SAP wanted it this way. Whilst HANA truly is a general-purpose database, SAP first announced it as an analystics appliance for the 1.0 release. They also priced it really high and didn’t' offer a discount – list pricing can be as high as €180,000 for a 64GB HANA "unit", depending on which version you require.

And what's more, SAP sells solutions and HANA is a platform, so the global salesforce doesn't quite know how to sell it in volume - yet. They didn't want to sell it in volume in any case because they wanted to introduce it slowly to market – building stability, references along the way and avoiding expensive and embarrassing global escalations.

So by the end of 2011 we should expect $100-150m of HANA sales, which is 3-5% of SAP's total revenue. Not particularly significant, right? Well in September they released HANA as being supported for SAP's Business Warehouse software, which allows large-scale data warehouses. And this is where it gets interesting: there are 17,000 existing BW customers, and HANA would provide business benefit to all of them.

What is the wider market opportunity for SAP HANA?

It starts with the SAP BW product, which has 17,000 customers. HANA can replace the database that BW runs on – which is typically from Oracle, IBM or Microsoft. The benefits of this are huge – much faster reporting, data loads, far better agility and a better business experience overall. HANA literally transforms SAP BW.

But that is just the start because the fact that BW runs on HANA means that SAP can allow any of its software to run with HANA – replacing the existing database. And how quickly it chooses to allow this is a factor of how quickly it decides that HANA is mature enough to do this. Larry Ellison from Oracle claimed that there is no in-memory database anywhere near to being able to run as the database for a transactional system at the beginning of 2011. HANA has not yet proven that it is ready yet, but this is exactly what SAP intends.

And even that is just the tip of the iceberg. Because let's be clear: HANA can be used for anything. It supports industry standard connections like ODBC and JDBC and anything that runs a database can be run on HANA – just much faster than ever before. Other vendors have in-memory technologies but the way HANA is designed means it is much more general-purpose than what Oracle and IBM have to offer.

So what is possible by 2015?

Well this is the billion dollar question. From a personal perspective I am deeply impressed with what SAP have done with HANA in 2011. It has gone from being vapourware (January) to being a real product on the price list (July) - albeit immature. And by September a second – much more mature – release was released to market that supports BW. That's an enormous amount of progress in 12 short months.

And I already have projects underway that use HANA as a general purpose database for things like the Sybase Unwired Platform – enabling real-time enterprises with iPads, providing decision making on the move based on events that happened seconds before. There's no doubt that the technology has huge potential. The question is – what happens next, and how fast?

It also depends what you mean by #2 database vendor. For example Oracle say they are the #1 SAP database vendor. Yes – they have the most large systems. Microsoft claim the same, because they have the most customers (a lot of smaller customers run Microsoft). And guess what, IBM claim the same – because IBM have the biggest SAP databases. SAP are going to have to be clear when they explain what they mean by #2.

But based on what I've seen – expect early ERPs to be supported by SAP in 2012 – including the BusinessOne ERP suite – ERP lite, if you like, designed for organisations with 1-100 employees. Expect SAP's SME (10-1000 employee) ByDesign cloud suite to run on HANA and also expect HANA to support standards: because today whilst HANA supports ODBC and JDBC, it does not support 3rd party systems to connect directly into this.

In 2012 we should also expect to see proper support for larger (>1TB databases). HANA compresses around 10:1 to 5:1 compared to other databases so 1TB is 5-10TB of standard database, but it hasn't really been proven to scale properly yet. Expect to see this happen in 2012, as well as scenarios that require disaster recovery and other technical stuff like integration with enterprise monitoring suites like Tivoli.

Why is SAP taking its sweet time?

It seems to be that the answer is pretty simple. The last major database to go to market was Microsoft in the mid-90s with SQL Server. They made an acquisition and it was still awful until the release in 2000. SAP doesn't want this stigma and is therefore phasing the rollout, making the software expensive and thereby limiting the number of customers.

For example there was no shortage of customers out of the 17,000 to join the NetWeaver BW early adoption program that SAP calls Ramp-Up. But there were 50 slots and those were easily filled with customers who had realistic projects that would go live. Little by little they build references, quality software and trust within the customer base – but not growing so fast that there are major project failures. There have been a few instances where HANA was oversold in the early days and those projects were managed carefully – directly by the SAP leadership team.

Projects that use HANA as an ERP database have been deliberately avoided, as SAP Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka told me. He described how if Porsche's BW data warehouse were to stop working, they would raise a priority support call and SAP would sort it out. However if their ERP system stopped working and production of cars ceased, he would get a personal phone call from a board member.

So in 2013 expect support for the ERP suite to start to come. And by then, HANA will be sold for every conceivable scenario through 2014 and 2015. And the interesting thing is I don't believe that a killer scenario exists for HANA yet, because all the scenarios right now are really about doing what you do today, but faster. Let's start thinking about what you can't do today – and might give you a huge competitive advantage.

And can SAP be the #2 database vendor by 2015? Really?

Honestly I'm not sure, but it is definitely the right goal. HANA isn't about high-performance analytics – it's about changing the way that customers do business, with a technology enabler. For this reason, SAP have to be looking at going after the database market – and helping customers get a huge competitive advantage along the way.

I honestly suspect that the biggest challenge that SAP have along this way is enabling the salesforce to educate customers on how beneficial it would be – because the SAP salesforce is aligned around industry verticals and Lines of Business. A global reorganisation is underway to change this, and the way that HANA is explained and sold is at the core of this, but HANA is a platform and will need to be sold as such. That is a serious piece of organisational change for SAP and shouldn't be underestimated.

Regardless of whether Steve's goal is met or not, SAP HANA is perhaps one of the most interesting technologies I have seen in my 14 years of working in Enterprise IT, and well worth serious consideration, whatever business you run. If you are a SAP customer I would go a step further and say that you should look at building your HANA roadmap, based on your business imperatives compared to the product maturity and availability roadmap.

Disclosure: SAP paid for John's travel and expenses to the Influencer Summit in Boston. Mine, too, btw, and SAP is a client of mine (Dennis).

My favorite SAP HANA blogs

Here are the "must read" blogs for those who wish to understand SAP HANA.

Jon Reed:

Podcast - Debating the Value of SAP HANA - http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/43986/podcast-debating-the-value-of-sap-hana/

Vitaliy Rudnytskiy:
Is SAP HANA about the “in-memory database”? - http://vitalbi.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/is-sap-hana-in-memory-db/
SAP HANA: Opening New Frontiers - http://www.sapvirtualevents.com/teched/sessiondetails.aspx?sId=651

John Appleby:

Updated: The SAP HANA FAQ - answering key SAP In-Memory questions - http://www.bluefinsolutions.com/insights/blog/the_sap_hana_faq_answering_key_sap_in_memory_questions/
First Impressions on SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3, powered by SAP HANA - amazing - http://www.bluefinsolutions.com/insights/blog/first_impressions_on_sap_netweaver_bw7.3_powered_by_sap_hana_amazing/
Why SAP HANA 1.0 SP03 - Project Orange - will be a runaway success - http://www.bluefinsolutions.com/insights/blog/why_sap_hana_1.0_sp03_project_orange_will_be_a_runway_success/

Vijay Vijayasankar:

Redbull migrates BW to HANA – I am suitably impressed - http://andvijaysays.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/redbull-migrates-bw-to-hana-i-am-suitably-impressed/

Moi:

What Are the Killer Apps for SAP HANA and Other In-Memory Computing Systems? - http://www.bluefinsolutions.com/insights/guest_blog/what_are_the_killer_apps_for_sap_hana_and_other_in-memory_computing/ and http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/44086/what-are-the-killer-apps-for-sap-hana-and-other-in-memory-computing-systems/
The Real (Potential) Impact of SAP HANA - http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/39209/the-real-potential-impact-of-sap-hana/
Is SAP HANA Right For You (Now) - http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/43547/is-sap-hana-right-for-you-now/
SAP HANA - The Strategic Context - http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/43491/sap-hana-%E2%80%93-the-strategic-context/

Enjoy!

What Are the Killer Apps for SAP HANA and Other In-Memory Computing Systems?

In a previous blog, I argued that SAP HANA (and in-memory computing) had the potential to bring a number of benefits to enterprises in the short term, including:

• elimination of lag time between data capture in the operational system and its availability in analytical systems,
• greatly increased query performance, and
• simplification of the IT landscape.

A second blog discussed scenarios in which HANA could be transformative to customers today. In summary, customers running SAP BW may find substantial benefits to moving to SAP HANA in the short term - read the blog for more details. It's my opinion that SAP BW is the "killer app" for HANA. However, this is only a part of the answer, since BW is a platform on which customers run many different apps.

"Timeful" software

Why is HANA so interesting? In a sense, what the HANA team did is to look at all the assumptions underlying applications today. Given the enormous changes in the price of high-speed memory, it is now possible and economical to handle essentially all of our typical transactional applications - and a very large fraction of our analytical applications - on a data set in fast RAM, rather than on a slow disk.

As I was discussing SAP HANA with Vishal Sikka (SAP Chief Technology Officer and Executive Board member) and his team over the past months, I came to the conclusion that the software architecture embodied in HANA is a radical re-thinking of the assumptions underlying the enterprise software industry - and this could be transformative for the enterprise software industry and every industry it supports. Disruptive changes in speed and cost have always held the potential for transformations of industries, whether in transportation (from sailboats to airplanes), farming (from ox-driven plows to today's automated equipment), or mining (workers with pick axes to earthmovers and dynamite). As these industries transformed, they also led to transformations in the industries around them, and society as a whole. For example, fast, cheap, reliable transportation led to transformations of every industry from agriculture to energy to trade to government and even to war.

Vishal recently discussed a concept he calls "Timeless Software" (blog, video). Timeless Software embodies the notion that software must evolve as customer needs - and technologies available to satisfy them - change. Business processes and data need to survive even as the technologies around them get invented, flourish, and eventually passed by with new and (usually!) better successors. But what about the situation where the business needs change extremely rapidly, and the business can flourish or perish based on its ability to respond in real-time?

You could think of this scenario, where time is of the essence, as "timeful software" - scenarios in which you could transform an industry by eliminating latency - or lack - of information. HANA's speed allows batch processes to be performed more frequently, continuously, or transmuted into continuous processes. Can such speed - delivering information and insight into the hands of those who need it instantly when it is needed, or re-planning on an "as needed" basis rather than periodically - can such speed really transform an industry? Can moving information and deriving information in real-time make such a difference?

In many business processes, the answer is already, resoundingly "yes." Hotels check availability before confirming your reservation. Banks check for sufficient funds before cashing a check at the teller. Airplanes get rerouted and rescheduled when a volcano erupts in Iceland. But there are many other business processes which are executed periodically, in batches, today due to the cost and disruption to production systems. If the cost (performance) and disruption (latency, system unavailability windows) could be eliminated - as they can be with in-memory computing systems like SAP HANA - then the economics of businesses and industries could be substantially improved.

These "timeful" scenarios listed below are illustrative of those which I think will be enabled by SAP HANA, and which will lead to dramatic efficiencies, competitive shifts, and improved service, creating value for customers in such a way as to transform an industry.

[For the scenarios, please see the original blog at this link.]

Killer App

A killer app is a typically thought of as an application that is so beneficial that it drives widespread adoption of a new type of platform. This term was invented for the computer industry, with VisiCalc (driving the adoption of personal computers) being a canonical example. Once individuals, and businesses, adopted personal computers to run VisiCalc (or Lotus 1-2-3 for MS-DOS, or Excel and Word on Windows), users started using those same computers for many other applications, ranging from word processing to e-mail to web browsing. The impact of these second set of applications is more profound than was the impact of the spreadsheet, but it was the spreadsheet that paved the way for these applications by bringing PCs into mainstream adoption.

VisiCalc, Lotus, and Excel were really just containers that held data and applications ("macros"), and it was those applications that made the tools into killer apps, used for everything from budgeting to tax preparation to production planning to homework. In many ways, SAP BW is exactly analogous to a spreadsheet like VisiCalc or Lotus. BW is a container that can hold data and applications - applications including the lists of processes above. BW, with scenarios like the long lists above, will drive widespread adoption of in-memory computing (and SAP HANA, more specifically). Once HANA is in place as the database under SAP BW, customers will find many more ways to use HANA to transform their enterprises to much higher levels of performance, much as word processors, e-mail, and browsers are transforming business and society.

Will SAP HANA have the same impact as the PC? Will HANA be VisiCalc or Excel in my analogy? Time will tell, but time is exactly what SAP HANA gives you. And, perhaps in the end, time is the real "killer app."

Do you have additional scenarios to suggest for "timeful" transformations? Share them here!

Note: SAP is a former employer, and current client, of the author.