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What's SAP?

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Re: What's SAP?

#261

Post by Aeolun »

thdrdt wrote: post #215
carstenhag wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A perfect example for a failure for this is Lidl's Elwis, they invested 500 million € into it and in 2018 they aborted the entire project. English article: https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/programmed-for-... Key quote: >Unlike many of their competitors, Lidl bases its inventory management system on purchase prices. The standard SAP for Retail software uses retail prices. Lidl didn’t want to change, so the…

But I still think this is a failure of SAP. What if the business model of Lidl is way better than the standard? Then Lidl is very wise not to follow how SAP works.

But very unwise for choosing SAP. Should have spent 500M on something that fit their needs.

Re: What's SAP?

#262

Post by blattimwind »

kokey wrote: post #112
shrimpx wrote: post #102

I live and work in USA but spend time in Europe. I noticed that in Europe SAP is wildly popular and a large percentage of “software engineers” are “SAP/ABAP programmers”. I have some engineer friends in Eastern Europe and they’re taking about how their employers are in the process of, or considering moving to SAP and away from in-house programming. These are not massive enterprises, mind you. Just small to mid size c…

Having worked for many multinationals, I've also noticed such a difference. If it's a US company it would often have a group of in house developed systems that are integrated with each other to some degree, and a team that maintains it, that would manage various things like inventory and lifecycle of systems and products and even sales and customer service. European companies, including those in the UK, would often s…

In-house software development is very rare in the EU if the main business is not software. And every other company that has in-house software tries to migrate from their "legacy in-house solution" to a "industry-standard solution".

Re: What's SAP?

#263

Post by 72deluxe »

reportgunner wrote: post #236
72deluxe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What language do you write in using Visual Studio? I use it with C++ and C# and I can't say stress enough how amazing it is to use with C++, compared to the teeth-pulling experience of using xcode for the same tasks (some of which are impossible in xcode, edit-and-continue for example, set next statement).

It might be just me, I use Visual Studio to write C# (not my "first" language) plugins for an older (non C# core) tool. Sometimes I also use Visual Studio to manage SSIS ETL packages, but I need an older VS version because they are not always backwards compatible - this leaves me with three versions installed on my computer - 2015,2017 and 2019 - each for something else. To be honest what I don't like is the neverend…

Have you tried moving the frames around a bit? I normally dump all the frames down the bottom particularly for debugging.

The double-keystroke thing is a bit odd yes, and the menu is hidden a bit far away for ease of navigation. Still, it could be worse - it could be a RIBBON!

Re: What's SAP?

#264

Post by ericalexander3 »

Technology can bring benefits if, and only if, it diminishes a limitation. -Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Goldratt was critical of ERP systems, not because they couldn't bring benefit; rather, because many businesses adopted through a cargo cult mentality and viewed them as magical silver bullets. Many companies never understood where their bottlenecks were (Theory of Constraints) and would make things worse with an ERP system, with some going bankrupt.

Re: What's SAP?

#265

Post by zxienin »

pinky07 wrote: post #153

My company is doing an open source alternative to SAP (and replace several SAP implementations already): https://www.odoo.com

> and replace several SAP implementations already

Can you clear up on „several“? Are these SME or LEs? Names?

Re: What's SAP?

#266

Post by sebazzz »

lewisjoe wrote: post #158

SAP always is an interesting case. It gets close to zero love from HN, yet the platform has some interesting engineering. For example, they had their own language that abstracts and operates directly over a database. They had their own drag and drop UI builder, that compiles down to a HTML page or a desktop widget - which is again not an ordinary feat. They view code as data, as in even the UI is stored as a configur…

Isn't SAP just a plain example of the Inner Platform Effect?

Re: What's SAP?

#268

Post by throwaway8291 »

In Germany there is a saying that translates to something like: "SAP sucks the blood out of the Mittelstand" - Mittelstand being the SMB up to 50M revenue p.a. There has to be yet a moment, where I hear someone emphatically speaking about the mess that SAP is.

Re: What's SAP?

#269

Post by ajsnigrutin »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #230

I teach enterprise systems at a university, with emphasis on SAP. It's hideous. Hideous. My students complain it is unusable (agree), doesn't make sense (agree), that they can't see the point (agree). When you look at the underlying database 'schema' (inverted commas deliberate) you'll find it's a massive, denormalised mess. Much of what SAP can do can be done at the local level using intuitive software. Reports, for…

I work in some other industry with some other software which is "our SAP"... and i look at it as "another IBM".

You have a bunch of smaller companies with different products, and whichever you pick, it will have some faults, missing features bugs, etc., and you'll the the one blamed for picking the "wrong" software.

...or you pick IBM/SAP/..., which is "de facto standard" in your {industry}, and whatever is wrong, is not your fault, but IBMs/SAPs/...s.

Re: What's SAP?

#270

Post by Aeolun »

olavgg wrote: post #89

Tesla decided a few years ago to replace SAP with something they built themself https://www.mendix.com/blog/tesla-cio-builds-erp-house-4-mon... I love this story, it really isn't that hard to replace SAP once you know the requirements.

If they did it in 4 months they must’ve had requirements that were so simple SAP was the wrong decision to begin with.
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