SAP plans to collocate two key US user events

Beginning next year, SAP A plans to collocate its ASUG (Americas SAP User Group) conference and Sapphire customer and partner event — both held annually in the spring — in a move to help participants reduce costs and increase the scope of their discussions.

“Customers and partners in the Americas have been talking about collocating these events for some time, and now we’ve decided to do so,” said SAP spokesman Bill Wohl in a telephone interview on Monday.

Traditionally, the ASUG annual conference and vendor exhibition has been held two weeks before Sapphire. “Next year, the two events will be under the same roof but begin and end at different times,” Wohl said. “The ASUG conference will open at the beginning of the week, allowing discussions to carry over to Sapphire, which will start in the middle of the week.”

Orlando has been selected as the location, according to Wohl. “We chose this city because it has sufficient capacity to house such an event,” Wohl said.

The dates will be announced Tuesday in a statement that will provide additional information about the collocation decision, according to Wohl.

SAP is also studying whether to collocate user conferences and Sapphire events in other parts of the world, according to Wohl. “It’s difficult to say whether this makes sense, especially in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region, where there is more of a country by country focus, unlike ASUG’s larger regional focus,” he said. “But it’s something we’re certainly willing to consider if there’s demand.”

At the upcoming Sapphire event in Boston, which will run from May 17 to 19, SAP plans to make several product enhancement announcements, in addition to demonstrating the new product, code-named, Mendocino, which the German business software vendor has agreed to develop, support and market jointly with Microsoft Corp., according to Wohl.

The joint product development was one of the major highlights of the European Sapphire event, which took place last week in Copenhagen.

SAP customers at that event showed huge interest in the product, bombarding SAP representatives with two primary questions: when will the product be available and what will it cost, according to Wohl.

In Copenhagen, SAP and Microsoft said they plan to have the product available in the fourth quarter.

Asked what the new product will cost, Wohl said SAP “doesn’t typically talk about prices in public” but, because of “the nature of this product,” the spokesman said he wouldn’t completely rule out an announcement.