A number of people I know are drooling over the fact SAP has got widgets as you can just about make out in my reduced size screen grab. More interesting to me is the fact that SAP has got them at all given its battle star size and (usually) treacle like decision making process time.
I like the idea of creating a desktop that gives me nice graphical representations of ‘stuff.’ I can see decision makers wanting this as opposed to SAP dashboards. The same goes for any other application vendor who uses the dashboard metaphor. I’m left scratching my head about how SAP monetizes widgets when the world around it gives them away? This is where consumery technology runs into a problem inside business. I can see SAP charging for widget development but if it does then it will have to watch price points very carefully. No $10K a pop.
Maybe it will go a step further and set up a widget shop, resplendent with Amazon style cart, rankings and reviews? Now there’s a thought. SAP has a huge customer base so it’s not as though there wouldn’t be takers.
SDN is well worth the visit if you want to know what’s going on in the minds of those who develop for SAP, where they’re getting source information and who is talking about stuff like enterprise search widgets.
Thanks to Mark Crofton for sharing a bunch of SAP/SDN related links that show off their public smarts in using wiki and blogs. This widget screenshot is taken from Australian SAP research Alexander Dreiling‘s site gives a flavour of the kind of thing I’m thinking about regarding dashboards.
Technorati Tags: SAP, SAP_NetWeaver
