March 29, 2007

More on Shai Agassi and SAP

Sramana Mitra has a little bit of a different take on Shai Agassi’s departure than mine. At first blush, it’s a distinction almost without a difference. In essence, she argues that Shai was frustrated because he couldn’t make big needed changes fast enough. That’s pretty close to my view that change simply wasn’t happening quickly or completely enough.

But the thing is — I think SAP’s overall technology roadmap has remained too incomplete. In essence — and I know some of my friends there will dispute this — SAP is still too focused on delivering software for how people should work, and doesn’t properly support the way they actually do — or realistically would like to — work.

Yes, it’s great that Dennis Moore and Dan Rosenberg are at SAP. But nobody — and this includes Shai — seems to be driving a real software re-think down into the individual products. The move to portal-based technology needs to be the beginning of the software functionality redesign, not the end. Josh Greenbaum thinks that Duet is all that and more, but I don’t see it that way.

Comments

6 Responses to “More on Shai Agassi and SAP”

  1. Manfred Stein on March 30th, 2007 3:38 pm

    No underestimation for Igor Tsyganskiy – the Head of Palo Alto Advanced Technology Center, Shai’s and Hasso’s “Wunderkind”

  2. The Monash Report»Blog Archive » Some quick thoughts on SAP acquiring Business Objects on October 8th, 2007 2:23 pm

    […] 1.  SAP needed outside talent again.   In March I wrote that Shai Agassi’s departure wasn’t as a big a deal as it seemed, because guys like Dennis Moore were still there.  Well, by now Dennis Moore is NOT still there, and rumor had more of the good personnel acquisitions leaving as well.  And unfortunately, my personal experience of some of those remaining is that they’re ethically unfit for their roles (and that’s putting it kindly). […]

  3. Manfred Stein on January 14th, 2008 6:19 am

    Igor Tsyganskiy is NOT with SAP as well…

  4. Curt Monash on January 15th, 2008 6:51 pm

    Dennis Moore is gone. Nimish Mehta is gone. Roman Bukary (OK, not at the same level as the others) is gone. Who’s left in the US operations that matters?

    Business Objects, of course, will give SAP a whole new influx of talent — but some of the best BOBJ people are themselves long gone.

  5. Robert Wymbs on August 4th, 2009 12:02 pm

    I am an old friend of Igor’s from Rutgers University in NJ. When did Igor Tsyganskiy leave SAP as he told me he was a lifer? Where is he now?

    Rob

  6. Norton Bassedo on September 27th, 2009 4:00 pm

    Igor left about two years ago, last time I checked he was running engineering at Wideorbit (igor@wideorbit.com)

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