Get a Bike Mr Kagermann!

WSJ.com's Ben Worthen quotes SAP chief executive Henning Kagermann "giving an interview in the back seat of a hybrid Mercury SUV instead of his usual Town Car, in accordance with SAP's new environmental policy". Kagermann is skeptical about the proposition that "large corporate-software projects will disappear, replaced by easy-to-use Internet-programs targeted at individual workers". Kagermann says:

... the most important features for the managers who buy business software are still a system’s security and reliability, and whether the system helps a business comply with an ever-growing number of government regulations, says Kagermann. Systems bought by individuals or departments don’t have the company-wide perspective necessary to meet these goals - The Reason It's Called Management Software, WSJ.com

I agree with Mr. Kagermann's points that Enterprise 2.0 software complements and connects transactional data that is stored in MRP, accounting and other traditional business applications, and complements rather than replaces transactional data stores.

Small and agile Enterprise applications work in the application gaps and cross-link silos of traditional enterprise software. By flagging issues and linking to opportunities or threats discovered in traditional systems, Enterprise 2.0 applications actually make transactional content more actionable and useful.

On Mr. Kagermann's last point - systems from small, agile suppliers are perfectly capable of meeting security, reliability and other business requirements based on a company wide perspective. And small, agile mammals discovered their niche and evolved to reshape the world of ah... dinosaurs. No offense!

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