Enterprise Geeks Podcast – You Can’t Handle the Truth

BS7: You Cant Handle the Truth

In this packed episode, Ed Herrmann, Thomas Jung, and special guest Rich Heilman talk about all the events from the SAP Press conference announcing the launch of SAP Business Suite 7.  Also included is a gold mine of information on clarifications of enhancement packages and the switch framework.

If you have questions, suggestions, or topic ideas for future episodes, give us a shout here. Enjoy!

Running Time: 59 minutes

Talking Points

• Fellow Enterprise Geek – Rich Heilman
  • Xcelsius Flex Control
  • Flex vs. ABAP – competitive or complementary
  • The whirlwind of working at SAP during the BOBJ acquisition
  • What it’s like switching over from IT to Technology
  • Future plans for Enterprise Geeks
  • Xcelsius Islands coming soon
• The truth – what exactly is SAP Business Suite 7
• WSJ – WTF?
• Clarifying Enhancement Packages for ERP vs. NetWeaver and how it relates to BS7
  • SAP ERP 6.0 –
    

    SAP ERP 6.0 is the “go-to” release until at least 2012 providing mainstream maintenance until March 2013 and extended maintenance until 2016.

  • SAP NetWeaver 7.0 EnhP1 –
    

    “For these SAP Business Suite systems, a separate ramp-up started in November 2008 which as part of SAP Business Suite 7 comprises SAP ERP 6.0 EhP4, SAP CRM/SRM/SCM/PLM 7.0, … .
    All relevant parts of enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 are included in the respective SAP Business Suite 7 ramp-up packages and will be installed automatically underneath the SAP Business Suite systems.”

• Advantages of the Switch Framework
• Leveraging custom BAdis, switches, enhancement packages, and namespaces
• Value Scenarios and Best Run now packages
• SAP is going from a back office suite only to a business process library for casual users, and the customers agree
• Business Objects as an analytics acquisition
• Subtle hints of the upcoming focus on In-Memory / RAM-resident database
• What is the strategy behind the “Harmonized UI” – casual business users no longer have blind faith
• Blogger meeting with Richard Campione and the differences in software suites – engineered vs. glued vs. branded
• The Press Conference experience
• Upcoming topics
  • The Harmonized UI strategy and the NetWeaver Business Client
  • More on SAP Certifications
• Some of the funnier moments from the blogger meetings