SAP Anniversary

SAP celebrates its 50th birthday. What a success story.

I am proud to have contributed to it in my almost 20 years at SAP. When I started at SAP in 1994, the new main building in Walldorf had just been moved into. R/3 had been launched the year before, and SAP’s rapid rise to become the world market leader in business software had begun. Hard to believe, but back then there was no Internet access. Email was only internal and based on R/2. It all developed very fast and especially my responsibility for the development and implementation of the new Microsoft platform (Windows NT / SQL Server) for R/3 and then the worldwide partnership with Microsoft will always stay in my memory. What a ride.

Fun Fact: in the SAP Video for the 50th birthday I can be seen briefly on stage with Hasso Plattner (minute 4:45). That was the SAPphire keynote with presentation of R/3 on the Windows laptop in 1995.

We need more such successful technology companies in Germany and Europe. Especially in the emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence. I have been involved with this since my time at SAP. It is important for the future success of our economy and society that, in addition to SAP, other global leaders in the field of software and exponential technologies emerge in Europe the next few years. In Artificial Intelligence in particular, we have the opportunity to develop new world leaders in this decade, as I detailed in my blog post The decade of AI. This is worth getting up in the morning for.

Happy Birthday SAP. To the next 50 years!