Author: Peter M. Färbinger, E3-Magazin

It is generally known that AI is fed by the vastness of the World Wide Web. For AI, texts, photos, videos and graphics are the source of „knowledge“. The sink is the answers from ChatGPT and co. What if the sources dry up?

SAP's commitment to AI is like icing poured over everything and everyone: The main thing is that it tastes like artificial intelligence.

Boomi is opening up another data channel in the SAP universe, giving SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) considerable competition with the Databricks extension. It remains to be seen who will ultimately win the race for the final ERP data platform.

At the end of AI development, there will also be a small language model at SAP. SAP is now content with small successes. Based on its own Abap tables, mechanisms such as machine learning are to be used as a supplement to SAP PAL. Uncertain added value?

SAP customers want and need cloud, AI, and IT platforms. SAP has good offerings with Joule, Cloud ERP, BTP, and BDC. However, the licenses and IT conditions do not align with users' ERP reality. SAP does not understand its customers, and vice versa.

SAP had originally planned to end mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 (ERP/ECC 6.0) at the end of 2025. This deadline caused significant concern within the SAP community because it was considered unrealistic and potentially disastrous, especially given the severe shortage of qualified experts and consultants for the S/4 migration.

Cloud computing was a much-discussed topic for a long time, then a standard, and thanks to hyperscalers, the cloud became a huge market with huge sales. Cloud computing is currently under discussion again and oscillates back and forth between sovereign, hybrid, private and public cloud. Which ERP architecture should the existing SAP customer choose?

The maintenance of an SAP ERP system by a third-party provider, mixed maintenance by SAP and a third-party company, and partial decommissioning of SAP licenses have been controversial topics in the SAP community for years. A lot of money is at stake!

SAP is stepping up its efforts to further develop S/4 Hana into a holistic suite of composible ERP solutions. The existing S/4 patchwork will be managed by AI assistants and agents. Best-of-breed ERP will be replaced by composable ERP with Databricks.

What should be done with SAP licenses that are no longer needed and only generate maintenance fees? When company shares are sold or staff is laid off, there are often too many licenses. However, unused licenses result in high support costs and maintenance fees.

The SAP community is increasingly diverging from SAP's plans. There is a wide gap between the global ERP market leader's dreams and reality.

SAP left the path of righteousness many years ago. It began with the hybridization of its database. Added value? Unknown. Many other construction sites were added, partly out of ignorance and partly due to competitive pressure. Unfortunately, between topics such as the cloud and AI, SAP has yet to find its way again.