Early yesterday afternoon, UK time, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Shai Agassi had resigned from SAP. Within a short space of time by e-mail, Twitter, SMS message, and the odd phone call or face to face conversation, the news and discussion was spreading. Since Shai was a strong candidate in line to take over as CEO at some point, along with the general consensus on his positive impact at SAP over the last six years, this is a big story in a week that the SAP PR department must be earning their money. Fellow Enterprise Irregular Josh Greenbaaum was early on the blogs with his analysis.
The picture of Shai comes from last year’s SAP TechEd at Amsterdam. You can read my thoughts on how he presented the new SAP last year - his charisma and presentation style will be sorely missed at the upcoming SAPPHIRE events. Reading the press release suggests that the timing on his move to the top job was too slow for his personal agenda. In the buzz yesterday many speculated that he would be going to some venture capitalist or private equity firm, but the move towards green issues and politics came as a bit of a surprise.
One senior Salesforce executive I contacted thought it was a blow for SAP and fortunate for them - I’m sure several of the enterprise competitors will be thinking that today. The Oracle team will be gearing up to spin the negatives. Dennis Howlett comments on this potential for FUD and has got the most detailed analysis of the situation I’ve seen, which ends with a suggestion to the SAP customers that, because of the uncertainty, now might be a good time for contract negotiations. The next few months of SAP watching, and how this affects their product strategy with A1S are going to be very intriguing.
