Do you remember the Channel 4 series This Life? If not then it describes the chaotic crazy lives of a bunch of 20-something alcohol and drug fuelled professionals. At the moment, the tripartite spats between Oracle, SAP and salesforce.com look rather similar to some of the punch ups in that series.
Over at eWeek, salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff has a pop at both but this about SAP is classic:
Let’s state it simply: SAP is an innovation-free company
Then we have SAP’s very own Jeff Nolan taking one of many pops at Oracle:
It’s really hard to figure out what Oracle’s intentions are on open source
Then Philip Woodgate talks about a BBC report where the protagonists slug it out in a one-liner fest fit for the Daily Star. I’m not sure where he gets the Chuck Philips quote from but it sounds right – when talking about salesforce.com:
In this case, I think it would be more fun to crush them
Philip says this kind of thing is distasteful. For hacks, it’s grist for the mill. But if the vendor community hates each of its competitors to the extent we’re seeing demonstrated in these quotes then what must they think of customers? Do I condone this kind of snarkiness. Yes and no.
On the one hand, claims are now being made on all sides which are impossible to verify. My sense is they’re all lying to some extent. But if you’re going to call out a competitor, then you’d better be sure your house is in order. So when Jeff had a crack at Apple – this is what I had to say:
Goodness Jeff – since when did SAP marketing allow facts to get in front of a good story? You point the finger there’s always 3 pointing back. And while on the subject – I got a frigging spamerati SAP inspired email (it had that oily gloss – you know what I mean?) from a reseller I never heard of before today telling me about the latest relaunch/incarnation of Business One with a video that doesn’t work on the Mac. How original is that? Comments? BTW – I loved the integrated tag…ahem as if SAP hasn’t been selling ‘integrated’ for 20+ years so now we have concrete that can only be dug up with large breakers? Ahem – rant over. yuk foo as the Chinese might say.
So am I any better or worse? Let’s put it this way, Jeff didn’t snap back. (I had another bullet in the chamber but I’ll save it for another day. Dang.)
Technorati Tags: integration, NetWeaver, Oracle, SaaS, Twinfield, Winweb
