What is the value of the in-memory database?

This past week, I was in Boston where SAP CTO Vishal Sikka revealed SAP’s roadmap for applications based on the in-memory database—HANA.

If it wasn’t clear before this event, Sikka made it explicitly so here—in-memory is a centerpiece of SAP’s application strategy. SAP will not only build new applications on the in-memory database, but over time every SAP application, from the Business Suite to Business One, will adopt in-memory technology.

Chances are, you’ve probably heard mostly about HANA in terms of the massive improvements it will deliver in speed of queries and reporting. HANA can be called the apex of Sikka’s Timeless Software delivery mechanism—a way for bringing the data in systems of record to users in engaging and intuitive manners. SAP also promises that HANA will dramatically simplify the SAP landscape, while enabling users to work at the speed now demanded of today’s businesses.

Chances are that you’ve heard all this and wondered, so what? Does my business need that? What does Timeless Software like HANA really mean to us—where’s the value?

And that’s where I think ASUG should come in.

ASUG is taking the lead on working with SAP to determine whether, and how, Timeless Software can deliver a greater and more important level of ROI. We’ll be working directly with Vishal’s Technology, Platform, and Innovation team, as well as other SAP experts to establish and release some specific benchmarking around these software developments.

SAP’s stated goal is to get to 1 billion users by 2015. Timeless Software is all about simplifying SAP and extending its use. How can we determine the value of not only simplifying the user interface, but the entire SAP landscape itself? How can we determine the value in extending SAP’s reach and use?

Just as Vishal is proposing a new reality for building software, we need a new reality for determining its worth. Timeless Software needs to be the cornerstone for something I call Infinite ROI.

Determining Infinite ROI requires SAP and we, as customers, to take a step further than employing our traditional metrics. Internal measurements—operational savings, task automation, business process improvements—won’t be enough anymore. We need to measure the external impact of our IT improvements: For instance, what’s the effect on our competitive positioning, market leadership and earnings per share?

It’s no surprise that the qualities of Timeless Software also apply to Timeless Businesses: they are modern, yet long-lived; innovative, yet stable; and they support change and growth, yet they never lose their integrity. Many of those timeless businesses are ASUG members.

It’s one more way we’ll continue to deliver ASUG advantage—real experience and real results. Stay tuned for more information at Annual Conference in May. And be sure to listen to an ASUG News podcast with Vishal in which he lends his thoughts on the connection between Timeless Software and Infinite ROI.

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