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An Outsider's View of SDN

SDN Meetup

Walldorf, July 2004

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DJ Adams

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Different Hats

  • As an SAP customer
  • As a member of the wider web community
  • As a user of SDN
  • As a non-SAP employee

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As an SAP customer

  • Great!
    • Finally something concrete for my developers
    • Shows commitment from SAP
    • New technology – show me the money!
    • Fantastic improvement over sap.com

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As an SAP customer

  • Not so great
    • Some content is difficult to access
    • Each developer needs to register
    • Usability could do with improving

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As a member of wider community

  • SDN is an island
  • The web-based developer community is the driver
  • If SDN doesn't fit in, it will be ignored
  • Website works against integration
    • Registration, Javascript, frames, IE-centric design
  • “Small pieces, loosely joined”

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As a member of wider community

  • Integration?
    • Access
    • Developer community building blocks
      • Full crawl by Google et al.
      • Technorati, Daypop, de.licio.us
      • Trackback, pings
      • Simple linking
    • Developers will 'route round the outage'
      • But ... enough momentum?

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Google and SDN

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As a user of SDN

  • Content
    • Like a mid-priced all-in-one stereo system
      • Lots of treble (overview) and bass (deep focus)
      • Where's the mid-range?
  • Navigation
    • Not best of breed (stereo analogy again)
      • Web-based forums
      • SDN is an island (again!)
      • Browser issues

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User Issues

http://www.gadgetguy.de/index.php/2004/07#SAP_takes_corporate_weblogging_seriously:

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“Make the weblogs work with Mozilla (you need IE now, due to the

login mechanisms)”

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Comment on Mark's post:

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“I guess you can't do much about the dependance on Internet Explorer, but

that's a bad thing.”

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http://www.silent-penguin.com/archives/001870.html:

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“I don't read the SAP weblogs currently because of the need to signup. That is something that must go.”

http://apolemia.blogspot.com/2004/05/i-received-newsletter-saying-there-is.html:

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“I received a newsletter saying there is a new forum ... in SAP developers

network. Unfortunately that site is having severe problems; I could not login. ...

Having good knowledge of good technology, why is SAP inflicting so much pain

on their users?”

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As a non-SAP employee

  • SAP developer vs OS developer
    • One does it for the money, and passion is a bonus. The other does it for the passion, and the money is a bonus. (Generalisation!)
    • Guess which one is which?
  • Natural resistance to sharing knowledge
  • This won't change unless the developers feel equality
    • “SDN belongs to SAP, not us”

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SDN Weblogs

  • Weblogs most successful area of SDN
    • Most visited place
      • Compelling – like a newspaper
      • The human side of development
      • People want to read alternative views, experiences, opinions
      • Rubbish will not be tolerated; bad opinions will be challenged and shot down – peer review rules
      • Sidebar of recent comments – great move
    • Nurture it!

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Let go!

  • SAP needs to 'let go'
    • SAP is not the universe – the web is the universe
    • Parallel with R/2 and R/3
      • Yesterday : “Integrated Software. Worldwide”
      • Today : Connectivity. Access. Openness.
    • Even more so now with the Java community
    • Events
      • Yesterday : Sapphire, TechEd
      • Today : JavaOne, OSCon, EuroFOO, ...

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Final thoughts

  • Great first steps
    • That we're considering these issues is fantastic
    • A new experience for SAP
    • The beginnings of something great
      • Lots of new stuff to learn
      • Need more developers
      • Existing developers need to update
    • Encourage, don't resist, what the community wants