SAPs duh strategy for mobile [Video]

Grand pronouncements are vague and disappointing

Credit: Nitpicker / Shutterstock

There SAP goes again: Making vague promises in the guise of major strategy. Today, SAP once again laid out a strategic vision for the stagnant ERP firm, this time pronouncing on how its recent acquisition of Sybase will lead to — wait for it! — mobile-enabling SAP’s application suite.

That is why SAP paid $5.6 billion for Sybase in the first place, of course. So tell me something I don’t already know.

SAP is famous for big promises, but also for not delivering on them. It’s been four years, for example, since SAP promised to bring ERP to small businesses, but we’re still waiting. (Or maybe not — the truth may be that ERP isn’t needed by small businesses, at least not SAP’s budget-sucking variety.) And it’s SOA/Web services platform never really materialized, but instead became just another middleware platform (Netweaver).

The current mobile promise is equally grandiose as the original …