1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 So here we are at Las Vegas, at SAP TechEd 2008. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Would you like to introduce yourself? 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Sure. 4 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:08,000 My name is Aaron Williams. 5 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,000 I'm Vice President of Co-Innovation Engineering Americas and the Enterprise Services Community 6 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:13,000 for SAP. 7 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,000 It's a long title, but it's part of the Global Ecosystem Partner Group here, working with 8 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,000 partners and customers so that they can engage better with SAP. 9 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,000 What's the new environment that you guys have come out with? 10 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:24,000 The new thing is Collaboration Workspace. 11 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:29,000 It's a new dimension to collaboration that SAP's come up with in the last six months. 12 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,500 It enables partners and customers to work with SAP in private collaboration rooms using 13 00:00:32,500 --> 00:00:35,000 all of the Web 2.0 technologies that we're familiar with. 14 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:38,000 It adds two dimensions that aren't available on SDNBPX today. 15 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,000 The first is privateness, so we can bring together customers and partners in an area that's not 16 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:43,000 public like SDNBPX. 17 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,000 And the second is it's an enterprise-aware. 18 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:51,000 So whereas SDNBPX, you're participating as an individual, within Collaboration Workspace, 19 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,000 you're participating as a member of a company. 20 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,000 And that's really important when it comes to the kind of programs that we have here at 21 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,000 SAP, which are really on the forefront of engaging in ecosystem. 22 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:03,000 We care about whether you participate on behalf of a company because of the legal agreements 23 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:05,000 that happen between your company and my company, for instance. 24 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:06,000 Right. 25 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,000 We want to make sure that everybody around the table has the same rules and is following the 26 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:09,000 same rules. 27 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,000 What are the sorts of things that people come together to collaborate on? 28 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:12,000 What are they using it for? 29 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:13,000 A few examples. 30 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:17,000 First, Enterprise Services Community is one of the programs that I run. 31 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:20,000 We bring together partners and customers to define Enterprise Services. 32 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,000 And that goes all the way down to the WSDL level. 33 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,000 So we define very clear specifications for Enterprise Services. 34 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,000 In order to do that, you need to first identify use cases and then go through a process of 35 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:33,000 prioritizing them and figuring out what business objects are needed. 36 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:36,000 And then creating the services is kind of the last step. 37 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:41,000 Throughout this entire structured process, we use the unstructured collaboration of Collaboration 38 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:46,000 Workspace through things like wiki documents and blog postings and discussion forums to 39 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,000 be able to create these specifications. 40 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:51,000 And these groups that we have will run six to nine months. 41 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:54,000 And at the end, they'll have a very nice specification that SAP can go off and implement. 42 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,000 Another example is Customer Value Network. 43 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,000 This is something that was created by the field to enable customers that are going through 44 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:04,000 similar upgrades or installs to be able to share best practices and share their experiences. 45 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:05,000 Right. 46 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:07,000 Not something you'd feel comfortable doing in a public website. 47 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:10,000 But if you bring those customers together in a private area, then they can really learn 48 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,000 a lot from each other as they go through the process. 49 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:14,000 Before, I mean, before we could have sort of like virtual workspaces. 50 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:15,000 Yeah. 51 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:17,000 How would people get together to collaborate before? 52 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:21,000 It was almost all done through email and exchanges through face-to-face meetings 53 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:22,000 and things like this. 54 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:23,000 Okay. 55 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:24,000 Which works. 56 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,000 I mean, you can get a good result out of that. 57 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,000 But not nearly as high-quality results if you use these new Web2.0 technologies. 58 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:30,000 Right. 59 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:31,000 Which are more engaged. 60 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,000 For instance, whereas we used to send an email of a document around the people. 61 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,000 And then when they made changes, they'd have to send it back around. 62 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:37,000 And then you always wondered whether you had the latest version or not. 63 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:38,000 Uh-huh. 64 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:40,000 Using Collaboration Workspace, it has full version control. 65 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,000 So we can always see what the latest version is. 66 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:46,000 We can also see who's made what edits as you go through the process. 67 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:47,000 Right. 68 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Which is huge value to these groups. 69 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,000 So you have these people working together who could be competing with each other 70 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,000 or who have, like you're saying, private information. 71 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:57,000 And I mean, it's easy enough to have like a private workspace somewhere or a wiki or whatever 72 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:58,000 to go work on it. 73 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:00,000 But like how else does, I mean, does SAP help out the other concerns? 74 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:02,000 Well, this is actually one of the key points. 75 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:05,000 Because the Collaboration Workspace in and of itself is really not that unique. 76 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:10,000 It's a bunch of commoditized technologies like wiki and blogs and forums. 77 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:14,000 But it's the programs that SAP has that are built on top of Collaboration Workspace, 78 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,000 that use Collaboration Workspace, that make it unique. 79 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,000 The Enterprise Services community, for instance, is what draws people in to use these new tools. 80 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:23,000 And the Enterprise Services community, as an example, has this kind of governance 81 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000 and this kind of spirit of collaboration. 82 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,000 The people that are there aren't there to share their unique innovations. 83 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:30,000 Right. 84 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,000 They're there to share the stuff that they want SAP to implement, 85 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,000 which is all the stuff that has already been commoditized across their industry anyway. 86 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:40,000 So it's kind of a sort of a product management, a requirements pipeline for SAP. 87 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:41,000 Exactly. 88 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:42,000 It's a little bit deeper than that, right? 89 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:43,000 Right. 90 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,000 Because we actually go to the space of actually creating the specifications, not just the requirements. 91 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:47,000 Yeah. 92 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:49,000 But because the people around the table are not coming and saying, 93 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,000 "I want this new whiz-bang thing from SAP." 94 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:52,000 That's the stuff they're doing. 95 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:53,000 Yeah. 96 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 What they do want, though, is the underlying platform to support their new whiz-bang thing. 97 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:03,000 So in that regard, we don't see the same kind of frustration or competition as you do within the public. 98 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,000 We came out with the first version of this at Sapphire in Orlando in May. 99 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:09,000 So it's only been a few months now that we've had it out there. 100 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,000 We've already grown to more than 6,500 users across more than 550 different companies, 101 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000 actively engaged across 16 different programs. 102 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:16,000 Yeah. 103 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:20,000 So the scalability of this in terms of the interest and the opportunity for us to engage is really high. 104 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:21,000 Right. 105 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,000 The first step for us was to get as many different stakeholder programs using this as possible 106 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:26,000 because that really proved the value of the underlying platform. 107 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:27,000 Uh-huh. 108 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:28,000 We've got those 16 different programs using it. 109 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:30,000 That's a great next step. 110 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,000 Now for Q4, what we're really going to be focused on is integrating existing applications 111 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 or solutions that are out there into collaboration workspace. 112 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:39,000 It's got a plug-in architecture. 113 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:41,000 And, like, what are those types of applications? 114 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:42,000 Yeah. 115 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:43,000 So one example is meetings. 116 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:44,000 Uh-huh. 117 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,000 So right now we have this great way of doing collaboration online, but we also have to do 118 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:49,000 face-to-face meetings still. 119 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:50,000 Yeah. 120 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,000 Or even, you know, WebEx type meetings. 121 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:54,000 So we're working to integrate Adobe Connect into collaboration workspace. 122 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:55,000 Oh, okay. 123 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:58,000 So it's easy to schedule a meeting with the people that are private to that group. 124 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:02,000 Easy to take the results of the meeting, like the presentations and the notes and the recording 125 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:05,000 of the meeting and push it back into collaboration workspace for people that couldn't make the 126 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:06,000 meeting. 127 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:07,000 Right. 128 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:11,000 So that's one example of an integration where we're taking advantage of, you know, other 129 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:14,000 collaboration means and pushing them into collaboration workspace. 130 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:19,000 Another good example is there's a company called Entheosis that has these things called innovation 131 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:24,000 games where they bring together customers and partners in a more fun way to produce specific 132 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:25,000 results. 133 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Traditionally, when we wanted to do prioritization, we'd give people a list and we'd say rank these 134 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:32,000 one to ten and then we'd take everybody's list and we'd add up all the numbers and figure 135 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,000 out, okay, which is the most important and which was the least important, which was interesting. 136 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:39,000 But it didn't give us the kind of background information like why did they think this was really 137 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:40,000 important? 138 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:41,000 Yeah, yeah. 139 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:42,000 Why did they think this one was unimportant? 140 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:46,000 Through this innovation game called buy a feature, what you do is you take that same 141 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:50,000 list and you assign a relative dollar value for how much you think it would cost to implement 142 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:51,000 that feature. 143 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:52,000 Yeah. 144 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:55,000 Then you give everybody around the table some fake money and you say, okay, now I want you 145 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:59,000 guys to talk to each other and figure out which features you want to buy. 146 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:01,000 And you never give them enough money to buy any one feature. 147 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:04,000 So they have to turn to the guy next to them and say, hey, I really want feature number 148 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:05,000 two. 149 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:08,000 If you chip in 20 bucks, I'll chip in 20 bucks and we'll buy feature number two. 150 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:11,000 And then the funny thing is the guy next to them says, I don't care about feature number 151 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:13,000 two because it doesn't have this, this and this. 152 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,000 I really care about feature number four because it does this for me. 153 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:17,000 They've taken a version of this game now and put it online. 154 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:19,000 We're integrating that into collaboration workspace. 155 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:23,000 So now any of those 16 programs that want to do a prioritization can use this new tool 156 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:25,000 or this new program for doing prioritization. 157 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:28,000 Well, is there anything else you wanted to mention before we take a look at it? 158 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:29,000 No, I don't think so. 159 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:30,000 Let's jump in. 160 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:31,000 Okay. 161 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:32,000 Yeah, we'll take a look at it.