Plattner's last stand May 7, 2008
Sapphire 2008 the top voted convention sponsored by SAP and its ASUG User Group ended today with a whopping 15,000+ population of prospects, customers, partners, and employees gradually emptying the Orlando Convention Center's impressive facility which spans close to 3/4 mile from end to end.
As I heard in the men's room yesterday from some anonymous person complaining to his buddy about how much one has to walk within the immense space...."my feet have a heart beat".
I was only able to see two of the four main presenters that were key to the event Henning Kaggerman and Hasso Plattner. The other two key speakers...Schwartz and Leo....are the new kids on the block...(so to say) and although are key to the company's future....have absolutely no bearing on the company's past.
I was actually impressed by Henning's nearly flawless presentation together with his master presenter Ian who balances the no frills personality of Henning with a well calibrated show of humor and wit and preciseness in he demo presentations. The demo's themselves were a piece of art!
Hasso ....always at the other extreme also chose to talk and use Ian to demo a few things...but it was blatantly obvious that Ian was not having an easy time "dancing to the music" at least the way Hasso likes to dance.
Hasso was in rare form....and at times had some people laughing on the floor with the candidness of a child...and with his comedic anecdotes of reality...in which everyone finds a string of truth ...that defies the overwhelming power of the Borg, and its always fun to fight robots.
The above article in the WSJ is a brief snapshot of some of his commentary, which in a manner similar to mainstream media's current fad of cropping and pushing specific phrases (i.e Rev. Right) focus on him dishing the Bronx low income housing.....rather than taking it within the context of his vision and opinions of Cloud computing...a very popular subject in tech circles.
Hasso's napkin like drawings of how things should work....and constant referral back to the days of creation are nostalgic at best....but irrelevant to today's Sales Machine which is what his baby became.
There's one comment which Hasso made....which may have whizzed by most people's heads and microphones at light speed. It referred to conversations he had had with the impressive head of Google in which he...(in a rather father-like manner) says to the young successful bull...."think carefully for you are very strong and buoyant....we are so large...it may sink your ship".
Sounds like another hint at a possible acquisition... Google....can you submerge?
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