SAP Mobile Platform Wishlist

It’s almost that time of the year. A period where you start writing down your wishes in a letter and hope that your wishes get fulfilled … so here we go.

Dear Santa,

I have been a good boy this year. Please ...

(or in business language ;-)

Dear SMP Product Owner,

SAP TechEd just kicked off today in Las Vegas, so sorry that I can’t join you to hear and learn all about SMP3 now. Glad with the preview blogs by Jens Koerner (SMP3 Launch) and John Wargo (Kapsel) and really looking forward to SAP TechEd in Amsterdam.

Wish list

MDD and its UI

• Please update the out of the box UI components for all platforms. They are worth investing in and expanding their lifespan. It provides the possibility of having an approach that supports “Build once and Deploy anywhere”, very handy in the enterprise world. The current “Windows 3.1” look and feel is really outdated.
• With OpenUI coming to the MDD approach (formerly known as Agentry) it will be possible to integrate native UI components with out of the box SMP UI components. That is a cool feature, but doesn’t help in the “Build once and Deploy anywhere”.

Synchronization

• Please help in tweaking the performance. Synchronization is not something an end-user requested for. So a quick and painless synchronization is key in user experience.

Strategy

• Please help us consultants in explaining SAP’s mobile strategy. With all the news around SMP3 I really think SAP is stabilizing its mobile roadmap. That’s good news as we all know what a bumpy road that was. I sure hope that things get clear and we can help our customers with an advice that lasts longer than 6 months.
• Please help positioning OData. It is it quite clear that this is the way to go. But where to position OData? Is it the successor of Sybase MBO and Agentry MDD? Or a new alternative to build offline apps that need to synchronize with a backend system.

Development support

• Please help developers in their development process. Just like with Sybase where MBO’s were graphically designed and generated “under water”. This sure speeds up the developments. Especially when you compare this with Agentry and requested custom developments. To create your own data exchange tables is a leap back in time without a ‘wizard’ helping you out.
• Please deliver the AppDesigner also to the MDD world. The AppDesigner is a long awaited tool to design online HTML5 mobile interfaces, it will sure come in handy to design great looking mobile interfaces based on the MDD approach.

Yours sincerely,

Twan van den Broek – who will be waiting to see what cool features will be delivered to his Christmas Stockings ;-)

Also posted on SCN.