The Economist has an interesting article about SAP. It’s pretty much in agreement with my previous post on the subject. These are interesting times for SAP.
I like that Mr. Klein is being realistic about what it will take to get this done. It’s going to be very painful to the SAP bottom line but has to be done if they are going to survive as a software power.
I don’t think the real threat is other “legacy” companies like Oracle and Microsoft, but rather the rapid expansion and capabilities of companies like Workday and Salesforce. They are cloud native and are used to be very agressive in terms of pricing and delivery. Investing (e.g. losing money) is second nature to them as they understand the cloud economics of get big quickly.
SAP still has a solid reputation and is making the right moves. The real question is how fast they can get to the cloud and how many of their customers move with them.