March 28, 2006

"s.a.p. killer"?

From Niko:

Last Thursday Sigurd Rinde gave me a virtual demonstration of Thingamy, his workflow application. I mean business modeling application. Err, database. No, reporting tool. Maybe an “enterprise app”? A web service back-end? No, not that either. And at the same time, all of these.

Scalable from a system you would build in 30 minutes (or less, really) to make something silly, such as manage your favorite restaurants, to being a potential SAP killer. And I’m not so much talking about technical scalability as conceptual scalability. As Sig prefers to put it, it’s like Lego (or what Lego used to be before they lost the plot). From the few different building blocks you can build anything from a toy car to a city.

As one of my best friends is one of the top SAP consultants on the planet, I am very reluctant to nail my colors to the "SAP is dead, long live Thingamy" mast [nor am I technically qualified to do so, besides], but it's interesting to see this whole Thingamy conversation evolve.

[Disclosure: Sigurd and I work together.]

Posted by hugh macleod at March 28, 2006 10:26 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Considering how much SAP costs, I hope it's an SAP killer.

Posted by: Mike at March 28, 2006 11:07 AM

I'm genuinely excited about seeing Sig's Thingamy.

Posted by: Ben Askins at March 28, 2006 11:33 AM

well can you get the cardboard spaceship to review it - he being well enough qualified. and if its an SAP "killer" - he can jump ship to the future...

Posted by: James Governor at March 28, 2006 2:03 PM

As I recall, Hamish has already had a look - and seemed reasonably interested:
http://hnewlands.typepad.com/cardboard_spaceship/2006/02/im_an_introvert.html

I'm not sure that he'll be out of a job anytime soon, though - Thingamy is way too scary for most of the people who buy SAP (or any of the other "concrete boot" enterprise packages). Thingamy's takeup will begin with businesses less sclerotic than Hamish's customers.

Posted by: Ric at March 28, 2006 2:55 PM

I used to work at Lotus, and this reminds me a lot of Notes, which was so hard to sell. Was it email ? A database ? A scriptable workflow system ? Yes ! Credit Jim Manzi with seeing its value and nurturing it along enough while waiting patiently for others to Get It. IBM bought Lotus for Notes, pure and simple.

Given the way the web speeds up the adoption of Novell software, your friend might not need to so much time to cross the adoption chasm, but even Groove, which is also a simarly plastic kind of software, did not (and arguably his still not) found a sustainable customer base before being acquired by another deep-pocketed company.

Posted by: Robert P. Krajewski at March 28, 2006 3:22 PM

Erm, subsitute "novel" for "Novell" up there !

Posted by: Robert P. Krajewski at March 28, 2006 3:23 PM

I'm by no means technically qualified to announce the death of SAP either. Or the death of Lotus. Nor do I believe in drastic events like agile software wiping out dinosaur software in a blink. Calling Thingamy a "SAP killer" just sounds good and gives a nice indication of what I see Thingamy having the *potential* to do.

Still, having used SAP and Notes implementations, as a user I wouldn't shed a tear seeing them go. In fact, if I was rich, I would offer lunch on a yacht to anyone finding me a happy SAP user. Not someone who gets paid using it, not someone who gets along with it, but someone who actually enjoys using it. Haven't yet heard of that species.

Posted by: Niko at March 28, 2006 7:09 PM

here's my favorite story of why SAP needs to be killed: A long time ago I worked at a big consulting firm that made a fortune implementing SAP at their corp clients. The conversation is between Big Firm's partner and a SAP bigwig...

BFP: This is not how the client wants to operate (etc.)
SAPBW: No!
BFP: Pardon? This is what we're thinking... We need to have a little flexibility here...
SAPBW: [pounding on table] Vee are very flexible! Vee vill do it exactly like zis!

Posted by: mike at March 28, 2006 10:23 PM

I am thinking about how to review Thingamy, and I think it needs to be discussed in terms of Kotlers four P's - Price, Place, Product and Promotion, because cracking the market requires all four to be covered.

Probably hook it up tonight if I get the time.

Posted by: Hamish at March 29, 2006 8:39 AM