2010: an eventful year

As 2010 draws to a close, it is now time to take a quick look back at what was certainly an eventful year for both SAP and the UK & Ireland User Group. 

We started the year with the news that SAP had reintroduced its Standard Support offering to sit alongside Enterprise Support.  For those who followed the Enterprise Support saga this was a great result for users worldwide, who while recognising the potential value of the enhanced offering, also wanted to be able to choose which support path to take.   As part of SUGEN, we are pleased to see continued collaboration with SAP regarding support. But, if you are still unsure about options available to you, please get into contact with the User Group and we can point you in the right direction of the information and resources you need.

 Soon after the Enterprise Support decision we saw the departure of Leo Apotheker and then SAPs return to having two Co-CEOs with the appointment of Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe.  Both Bill and Jim promised that SAP would again get closer to its customers and since they have taken the helm they have by and large stuck to their word.  As many commentators have now pointed out their ‘honeymoon’ period is coming to an end, so the real challenge will be to take SAP forward in 2011.

 From a technology perspective, SAP hasn’t stood still.  We finally saw the latest release of Business ByDesign, which has created a lot of renewed interest in SaaS from SAP users.  We also saw SAP’s acquisition of Sybase which will undoubtedly play a major role in expanding SAP’s mobile offering.  This alongside the further integration of BusinessObjects means that SAP users stand to benefit from more functionality than ever before.  Then to cap it off SAP announced HANA, its news in-memory computing engine, which promises a breakthrough in future data processing.

 Finally to end the year we had our Annual User Conference in Manchester, which was our biggest and best event yet, and for the first time featured a keynote from SAP’s CEO (Jim Snabe). Once again it provided a fantastic forum for SAP users from organisations of all types/sizes to come together and share their experiences. So again, many thanks to everyone who supported and came along to the 2010 event and we look forwards to seeing you in 2011!