By Ken Murphy

@KMurphyWisPubs

San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York perfectly summed up SAP’s mobile, cloud, social, and analytics strategies during the SAPPHIRE NOW keynote Tuesday morning while discussing his experiences as a fan at a Notre Dame football game.

Joined onstage by SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, NBA deputy and future commissioner Adam Silver and moderator James Brown of the NFL Today on CBS for the longest segment of the 90-minute keynote, York discussed sitting in the front row at the 50-yard line during a game at Notre Dame and yet feeling like he wasn’t on top of the action because he couldn’t follow the conversation about a controversial on-field ruling.

Think about that for a second: Front row. 50-yard-line.  Not a better seat in the house, and yet not feeling connected. Having a “front-row seat” always has meant metaphorically being part of the action, an eyewitness to history. Being there was more than just enough, it was everything. Now, that “front-row seat” means being connected with the world; listening, commenting, and understanding what is happening in real-time. York’s intent wasn’t to disparage the in-game experience; he is, after all, the CEO of an NFL team building a $1.2 billion stadium. Rather, he was pointing out that today’s fan expects more. 

McDermott hammered this point home during his opening remarks before a conference hall audience of 20,000, with an additional 80,000, including this writer, watching on-line. For businesses and consumers alike, access to real-time, actionable insight is the future. And for SAP, that future will be realized by the potential of SAP HANA, which McDermott characterized as “the fastest growing software product in the world,” the “intellectual renewal of SAP,” and the “platform for everything that SAP does moving forward.”

It is no surprise, then, that McDermott discussed the influence of the Millennial Generation, those 2 billion consumers born between 1980 and 1995 who, McDermott said, were “born into the mobile device.” Like the sports fan who expects instant up-to-date statistics, those consumers look at technology as purpose-driven, not product-driven; software, not hardware.

Summoning his inner Millennial, McDermott said that for that influential segment “technology doesn’t make me who I am; it allows me to do what I want.”

And that, really, is at the heart of SAP’s game-plan moving forward, evidenced by McDermott’s closing remarks when he said that SAP now defines itself as a B2B2C market leader with “user experience  now our top priority.” For SAP, he said, its most important consideration as it touches 75% of all worldwide transactions that are conducted on the SAP Business Suite is that “behind every business process is a real person.”

So for all the talk of how SAP HANA can help businesses run “smarter, faster, and simpler,” McDermott’s message during the keynote was SAP HANA’s real value being derived from helping people improve their everyday lives. From the car that can help its driver find parking, to personalized medicine, to biometric shirts, to real-time sports stats, to the application that gives brewers real-time statistics on beer pours, SAP HANA helps transform heretofore “dark data” into meaningful data by making sense of intent to predict future possibilities. (For more on beer industry insights, check out the article on WeissBerger on Page 27 of SAPinsider’s special SAP HANA issue.)

After wrapping up his opening remarks, McDermott introduced his all-star sports panel for more discussion of SAP HANA. York and the 49ers of course teamed with SAP to develop the SAP Scouting mobile app, and Silver pointed out that the NBA statistics page on NBA.com is powered by SAP HANA.

 And that fan experience that York unintentionally disparaged? Well, look also for SAP HANA to be front and center for the “new” fan experience at the 49ers new home stadium, Levi’s Stadium, scheduled to open in Santa Clara, Calif., in time for the 2014 season. (SAP is a stadium partner and owns naming right to the team’s practice facility). York said that fans can expect a “ticketless and cashless” experience during game-day, where they can create their own individual experience without leaving their seat; everything from ordering food and drinks to following a fantasy team to having their own sideline reporter.

This experience, McDermott said, is part of SAP’s strategy to “connect the league to the team to the fan in one integrated value chain,” as it rushes headlong from scrimmage into the sports and entertainment industry – the 25^th industry it’s now a part of.

No different, really, from SAP’s recognition of the importance of a business’s customers, the “real person” that McDermott said is at the heart of every transaction with the SAP Business Suite and the SAP HANA platform that intends to make that customer’s everyday existence “smarter, faster, and simpler.”

Front-row seat, indeed.

@KMurphyWisPubs

There is a great blog up on the SAP Community Network about mobility’s place behind the wheel, followed by a poll  (log-in required to vote) asking readers to weigh in on the subject. A quick recap of the excellent post by SCN moderator Jennifer Lankheim: A California driver was cited for using Google Maps on his iPhone, but contested the citation because the “hands free” law under which he was cited – while prohibiting listening, talking, or texting on a mobile device while driving – did not specifically address looking at one. The driver argued it wasn’t illegal to look at a paper map, so why a map on a mobile device? The driver lost, and then lost an appeal when a three-judge panel ruled that the law, though “illogical and arbitrary”, was passed with the purpose of eliminating distractions inherent with using a phone while driving.

As someone whose home state of Massachusetts recently enacted a law against accessing the Internet or sending or reading texts, emails, and instant messages while driving, I found this story particularly fascinating, and my guess is that we will see an entire convoy of similar cases moving through courts across the country in the coming years.

It’s not difficult to find a trove of news stories that support this conclusion. A recent SCN blog by Mahira Kalim about the Internet of Things (aka M2M) points out that by 2020 it’s expected that there may be up to 50 billion Internet-connected devices in the world – roughly 6.5 for every person alive. That Toyota Camry that cut you off on your way to work this morning? Connected. And don’t think we’ll have to wait until 2020, either. A USA Today article featuring Ford’s use of Big Data says that Ford’s plug-in hybrid car generates 25 gigabytes of data per hour that is processed and then displayed to drivers via a mobile app, giving them real-time information on things like battery life or where to find the nearest gas station. (SAP Experts Managing Editor Scott Priest links to a few other recent M2M articles in Tuesday’s Today in SAP blog, including an SAP study on the topic.)

It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Accessing Google Maps while driving can’t be any safer than interacting with a device every time an app alerts you about your car’s performance. Will Ford’s mobile app be this decade’s version of tinted windows? Will hands-free laws have to be constantly updated as newer technologies – think Google Glass – take root? In Massachusetts, at least, many argue that the current law lacks teeth because it’s essentially unenforceable – while texting and driving is against the law, dialing a phone number (or glancing at a map – looking at you, California) is not.

A constantly moving target of what is or isn’t a distraction, as well as a subjective interpretation of existing reckless driving laws, make this topic hard to pin down. Let’s face it, a distraction for one driver – applying make-up, for example – isn’t necessarily a distraction for another. Like it or not, driving experience and ability are factors, which gives some truth to that saying – it’s only a distraction if you’re caught or in an accident. That’s why reckless driving laws are primarily enforced – or created – as reactionary measures. Is talking on the phone behind the wheel that much different than drinking a cup of coffee?

This isn’t meant to condone texting and driving, just to point out that this is why uniform hands-free laws are hard to come by. As we become more connected and more dependent on our mobile devices, it’s likely that driving habits that are legislated against today will become commonplace tomorrow. With everything that we’ll likely be able – if not allowed – to do behind the wheel, merely talking on a handheld will seem as antiquated as using a rotary phone. Not to worry, though. Once a self-driving car appears in every driveway, all this debate over what is and what isn’t a mobile distraction will go the way of fuzzy dice on a rearview mirror. Then instead of laws against looking at Google Maps, state legislators will scramble to put new laws on the books that outlaw napping while driving.

@KMurphyWisPubs

SAP HANA and Eric Reid will forever be linked. As noted by SAP Experts Managing Editor Scott Priest in his “Today in SAP” blog, all eyes were on the San Francisco 49ers during the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night. Having used the SAP Scouting mobile app powered by SAP HANA heavily in its draft preparation, the defending NFC Champion Niners were champing at the bit to take a player off the draft board, trading up 13 spots to take Reid, a safety out of LSU, with the 18^th pick in the first round. San Francisco swapped first-round picks with the Dallas Cowboys, giving Dallas its 31^st pick and its third-round pick (No. 74 overall) for the rights to Reid.

If Reid pans out as an elite NFL safety, the fact that San Francisco moved up in the draft to take him is a dream come true for SAP, especially because some so-called draft “experts” had Reid pegged to go anywhere from the middle of the first round to perhaps even the third round.

“He’s kind of a wild card,” NFL Network’s Mike Mayock said of Reid prior to the draft.

San Francisco – and SAP HANA – clearly thought otherwise. So, what then did SAP HANA have on Reid? Surely every team knew prior to the draft that he’s 6-foot-1, 213 pounds, was a first-team All-American and ran a 4.59 40 at the NFL Combine. Did a juicy nugget of real-time information appear on Niners GM Trent Baalke’s iPad last night that sold him on Reid? Perhaps SAP HANA keyed an alert, causing the app to flash “Pick Reid!” in 30-point font.

I picture Reid having a three-interception game this fall and an opposing GM up in the booth ripping off his headphones in disgust, “Get me that HANA!”

Of course, the flipside for SAP HANA is that Reid doesn’t pan out, a la Kentwan Balmer whom San Francisco drafted with the 29^th pick in pre-SAP HANA 2007. Balmer, a tackle out of North Carolina, never started a game in parts of two seasons. Perhaps Balmer is the reason San Francisco teamed with SAP in the first place: Make us an app to make sure that never happens again.

The other player involved in SAP HANA’s draft debut, albeit tangentially, is Wisconsin center Travis Frederick, the player Dallas selected with the 31^st pick. This is another potential feather in SAP HANA’s cap. While there’s no guarantee that San Francisco would have chosen Frederick had they not traded the pick, it’s hard to argue against the NFL prospects of a 6-foot-4, 338-pound first-team All-Big Ten center.

SAP HANA, though, preferred Reid. And now SAP has a stake in the game, so to speak, on the field as well as in pre-draft war rooms.