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Technology Stocks : SAP A.G. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kaydee who wrote (2773)	11/9/1998 2:35:00 PM
From: treetopflier	Respond to of 3424

Hey, nobody every said SAP was the best. They're just the biggest. Don't like the product? Fine. Go buy ORCL or PSFT. But if you want to follow the crowd, this is your pick. Just like buying MSFT products now or IBM mainframes in the late 80's. So CPQ can't match DELL for deliveries cause their backoffice software infrastructure is a mess. I'm sure they can fix it by throwing more hardware at it somewhere... Or call the consulting firm that 'facilitated' the unbiased product evaluation you did something this decade that led to your SAP decision. It isn't product engineering that got SAP to where it is today. It was the strength of their relationships with those that influence buying decisions in large organizations (Price/KMPG/Anderson ...). These guys made FORTUNES installing SAP. They still do. If you were a consulting firm and your goal was to maximize your billable hours would you recommend installing something that was quicker, easier and simpler to customize? No. You'd recommend what your bench was deep in and what you could bill the most hours implementing. In the 90's the benches in these firms were deep in SAP knowledge. SAP saw to that and so did the partners of these firms. They needed new swimming pools, Mercedes and houses in the Hamptons. So CPQ, call your favorite consulting firm and have them fix the problem. ttf P.S. Nice job in retail. I'm sure Nash Finch is very pleased at the $50M they FLUSHED hoping you'd actually deliver a retail specific version in time to meet their Y2K needs. Lovely article on the front page of Computerworld. Great job in verticals. What next after screwing up all the retail firms that trusted you...?

To: kaydee who wrote (2773)	11/9/1998 3:47:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 3424

DBK, that article on Sap problems at Cpq is really old news. Weve talked about it on the Dell thread. Whats really amazing to me is that these ERP companies (or maybe the customers) manage to keep a lid on this information. Another example of a Sap failure is Applied Materials - up until a few years ago Amat was THE showplace for at tech Sap implementation. Not sure what happened but they now are going Oracle/I2. I mentioned that on the Oracle thread the other day, its a big win for Oracle apps (not really a big loss for Sap though) and nobody knew about it. BTW all the ERP companies have failed implementations so this situation with Compaq is nothing new. My experience is it has more to do with the customers' infrasturcure than the ERP software. Well, sure theres some times when a customer wants something in the order cycle that is just impossible to achieve technically... but that is kind of rare. Usually, the problem is, when you ask purchasing or whatever what their business processes are, they cant document them because there is no clear process - just a whole bunch of exceptions for every case. Thats why ERP implementations fail, imo. The worst example around here is Sun Microsystems. Theyve been trying to implement Oracle ERP for 6 years I think. Michelle

To: kaydee who wrote (2773)	11/9/1998 5:37:00 PM
From: Wigglesworth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3424

Re: Compaq and installation problem This shouldn't surprise nobody! I own a Compaq Presario. Every time there's an Internet Explorer upgrade, it crashes. One of the most often used software in my library is the Compaq Quick Restore CD which reformats my hard drive every time inserted. And is there a soul in the world who knows how to remove AOL 2.0 and Netscape 1.3 preinstalled on my machine?? Current versions are 20.5 and 31.9, I believe. If these folks can't reliably install Windows software, how else can one expect with SAP software?