Official statements paint a picture of prosperity and wealth under a cloud-filled sky. Those might be thunderclouds, however, as there are only very few real winners of the cloud business.
On the one hand, these winners are AWS, Google, and MS Azure. For them, the picture of prosperity and wealth seems real enough: They make money through scaling effects and international roll outs. On the other hand, these winners are special interest cloud providers which have defined and created profitable niches for themselves. Between these two ends of the cloud business spectrum are wannabe cloud providers trying and failing to make money with cloud computing – not unlike SAP.
Thunderclouds on the horizon
But lo and behold, it might not be entirely SAP’s fault this time. Every cloud provider seems to be lacking employees, advisors and partners! Not to mention partners that work with SAP, MS Azure, Google and AWS, who seem to not even exist.
SAP customers who want to ascend to heavenly realms, beware! The way into the cloud is risky and nearly unmanageable, as there are too few experienced advisors and experts. Even the major cloud providers are no help.
Google has ambitious plans for the SAP community but might not be able to deliver after all. The only known SAP and Google partner has a high rate of staff turnover at the moment and will likely not be able to support the two providers in the first half of 2019.
MS Azure is better off, but not by much: They have to share a SAP partner with Google. AWS is attracting customers with low prices but losing them over lack of SAP experts and partners.
Considering the lack of cloud know-how, every SAP customer should think twice about a rushed migration to the cloud with Hana and S/4.
Still not convinced of the thunderclouds on the horizon? Just look at the recent increase in revenue generated from hardware. On-premise seems to be getting a second chance as long as AWS, Google and Microsoft lack know-how and SAP partners.
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