Recent Posts
- U.S. "riskier" than China
- Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Kraft green notes
- Fight Big Oil with RFID?
- Un-flattening the world?
- The New AMR List Has Arrived!
- SAPPHIRE Wrap-up
- Supply Chain Management and Eating Right
- It's Not Easy Being Green -- Sometimes
- Wal-Mart to Sell Green to China, but Not Everyone's Buying
- One Consultant's View on Supply Chain Education
Recent Comments
- Dave Snyder / Federal Rack on Un-flattening the world?
- Randy Littleson on Un-flattening the world?
- jinski on The Grocery Store of the Future
- wow gold on Green Supply Chain
- barr.cj@pg.com on One Consultant's View on Supply Chain Education
Most Commented On
- One Consultant's View on Supply Chain Education (4)
- Green Supply Chain (3)
- The Grocery Store of the Future (3)
- Rose Logistics -- Happy Valentine's Day! (2)
- Un-flattening the world? (2)
Archives
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
Blog
SAPPHIRE Wrap-up
May 12, 2008
Last week I attended SAPPHIRE 2008 in Orlando, Fla. This is easily one of the largest events I've seen yet. Conservative estimates had attendance at 15,000, but whispers in the Orange County Convention Center say it could have been higher than 18,000.
After about 10,000, I stop counting and pray I'm not run over by the crowd. The event had all the trappings one might expect from a company the size of SAP, including a networking cocktail reception for press and analysts at a luxury car club and an Eric Clapton concert.
The daytime events were interesting. As usual, the show floor was packed with participants, some with "booths" that were so large they can only be described as "sprawling." The theme this year was "business without boundaries." SAP, for its part, was trying to reinforce this concept with a service it calls its "ecosystem," a holistic approach to serving its customers, not just by offering software, data hosting, consulting and other services, but by integrating them all into one package. They also included community forums where customers can chat with each other. I found it intriguing, given supply chain management's approach is also a holistic one.
The company also announced, with some fanfare, new products that allow SAP services to be available on one's Blackberry, unveiled in a demonstration on Tuesday morning. I think the usefulness of this technology will be more apparent to current SAP customers than others, but it's a clear sign of the increased proliferation of handheld devices doing more and more.
Posted by Sean Murphy on May 12, 2008 | Comments (0)