It’s time for a survey of “experts”!

Today (I know it’s supposed to be a holiday) I was reading an article from Chris Kanaracus in Business Week. Now before I start to give my view I need to be clear that Chris is the reporter here. He reports on some comment from Forrester or, more specifically John Rymer, who is stating (according to the article):

“SAP customers should still use NetWeaver to extend their SAP business applications, but avoid using it for complex, enterprisewide middleware projects, he added. “We think you ought to look at other providers,” Rymer said. “We don’t think SAP is going to step up to those requirements over the long haul.”

I thought, this is interesting and decided to check out John’s pedigree in this area – what experience has he with Netweaver? The Forrester site says the following:

 “John came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group and has a combined total of six years with the company. He has worked as an industry analyst for more than 15 years, starting in 1989. John’s industry experience includes a stint as vice president of product marketing for IONA Technologies, where he gained first-hand experience in creating and executing market strategies.”

So John has only got what he has heard from “others” about Netweaver – what he lacks and this is the difference to user group members, is front-line experience of the product. I was glad to see that SAP refuted this position with this statement:

““NetWeaver is our platform and will be our platform going forward — and there is an incredible amount of innovation we intend to continue to bring into it”

Which, of course, is known by anyone who has used it. So this then made me question the statements of “experts” and perhaps it’s time to consider who are the experts? In my view an easy question to answer – those who use the product and strangely that is user group members, so if you want to know more about Netweaver – speak to UG members.