I like your words and believe the perception changing in business software industry. It's just too expensive and too inefficient for company to continue to run on tradtional ERP model. OpenSource technology gives sense of evolution in business software industry and business software industry is due for an evolution!

We're building new type web-based business solution with OpenSource technology, please check our project and let us know your opinion.

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These are quite caustic comments about Shai Agassi. Certainly SAP should not ignore the potential of open source and SaaS. Matt, I hope you are right about Shai leaving SAP being a good thing for the company!

you are a joker to even comment like this, I wonder if you can even spell TECHNOLOGY right.
Your customers are global 2000.. huh what a premier list.. are u sure its 2000 and not global 20,000 ( that way, all your customers would easily fit in the list)

Your crazy..

In My humble opinion ERP was stagnating, or in fear of it before Shai got there (or they would not have paid him 400mil).. the BIG companies are using XI, NetWeaver.. and reaping the benefits, while you are still developing yours.. and in 2 years you'll be redeveloping yours again to catch up to somebody else. Maybe you'll sale out to get a bigger share of the market. Shai is smart, well funded, and works with some of the best people. The best product may not always win.. but the biggest will. My bet’s on Shai. Everywhere he goes a paradigm shift follows.

[Asay responds: Possibly, "bubba," but I don't compete with Shai/SAP. Not my market. So, SAP may well end up ahead of me, but since I don't sell ERP, who cares? Btw, I'm betting that my top-10 customer list is roughly the same as SAP's. This is why I find SAP's comments about open source business applications to be so laughable.]

Shan: My company sells into the exact same companies that SAP does. I'm betting that our top-20 customers are roughly the same as SAP's. This is why I find it incredible that SAP would continue to deny the reality of open source business applications. Open source may not be troubling the ERP world just yet (and there are good reasons for this), but it's rocking everything else.

I am sure, YOU ARE IGNORANT. Did you ever think why SAP paid Shai huge money to buy top-tier and made him into board of directors of SAP? Where was SAP standpoint when Shai was not there with SAP and where it is now when Shai entered SAP and introduced NetWeaver stuff? NetWeaver is a buzzword in today's corporate world. Who sowed the seeds for that? Just use your brains man.

C'mon, Raymond. Who are you kidding. The TopTier acquisition was a disaster. The SAP portal is rubbish, and no way was it a success by any measure other than *perhaps* evidence of a willingness to change SAP's mindset. Odds are that Shai's departure will allow other innovators that Shai's presence has enabled to have their moment in the spotlight, effectively multiplying SAP's rate of change, not reducing it.

"Use Your Brains, Man".

As a SAP technical consultant with over 10 years experience I must agree that the Java Netweaver introduced by Shai Agassi was a technical disaster. Even after 4 years its still crap because of its 2 GB memory limitation of the Java engine. How can you ever expect to perform large corporate data processing with that ? It is rather like turning the clock back 5 years when 32 bit computing was the norm. I think Shai's failure to deliver stable and mature Java platform is the actual reason for him leaving. It would not surprise me if SAP brings out a Portal based on the ABAP stack soon.