Comments on: Software service networks, not product stacks

By: » Wither Oracle, SAP, et al? (Pt 2) | Software as services | ZDNet.com

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:25:09 +0000

[...] SAP blogger Jeff Nolan reports that SAP executive board member Shai Agassi completely dismisses this approach:If they really want a single throat to choke, they’d much rather go to IBM "Shai said emphatically that ‘we are not a platform company, we’re an application company’." Although as Nolan goes on to point out, that’s not exactly what Agassi means, if you consider that SAP’s NetWeaver strategy is all about building an application platform. The point is that it stops at the layer of application infrastructure: there’s no operating system, there’s no database, and in the fullness of time there won’t be an application server either. But there will be a lot of middleware, designed to support a network of software services that interact to provide composite applications. It’s a platform, but not a complete top-to-bottom stack like the one that Oracle aims to offer. [...]

By: Barry Briggs

Barry Briggs — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:28:53 +0000

I agree with your points, Jeff. Even though it’s nice to see that Microsoft was the only vendor portrayed as having a ‘complete stack’ it’s clear that a) having an OS would help SAP not at all; and b) more importantly, the dynamics (no pun intended) of enterprise software are changing dramatically. Ultimately the winners will be whose services (and embedded IP) are clearly superior, whose services can be most fluidly composed into highly customized apps, and whose services have the most flexible hosting (and charging) configurations. … Barry

By: AccMan Pro - Dennis Howlett on innovation for professional accountants » Vendor messaging and Tom Raftery

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:53:06 +0000

[...] Vendor messaging and Tom Raftery By Dennis Howlett If you want an object lesson in influence then see Jeff Nolan’s post about how application vendor strategies are changing to reflect the new realities of the Internet economy. Then see Dan Farber’s dissection of Jeff’s argument. Questions: [...]

By: » Software service networks | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

» Software service networks | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:57:18 +0000

[...] SAP chief blogger Jeff Nolan comments on Martin Lamonica’s story on "Software Stack Wars"–the notion that enterprise software vendors are obsessed with building their own pre-certified stacks, from operating system and middleware to applications and databases, or some variation. I wrote about Oracle moving in that direction, based on CEO Larry Ellison’s remarks about adding Linux to have a more complete Oracle controlled stack. The logic is simple–customers mimimize cost and complexity in areas where differentiation is mimimal among parts of the stack and vendors maximize profit from services contracts. [...]