Sponsored Academic Research
Group of the Chief Scientist
Transfering Innovative Technologies into SAP Products
More than other industries, information and communications technology (ICT) needs innovations to sustain its future revenue stream. One of the tasks of SAP's Group of the Chief Scientist is to determine emerging IT and business trends, conduct vital research and connect the developing organizations within SAP to leading technologies from top American universities.
To identify future trends and to facilitate the roll in of new technologies for SAP, SAP Labs Palo Alto has established the Sponsored Academic Research Program with the goal of creating strong university relations in the Americas and harvest leading edge technologies from academia.
Research Agenda
The Group of the Chief Scientist focuses on these hot topics including:
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High Performance Computing - Multicore/Multithreading
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Economics - IT Productivity, Business Network Transformation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
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Sustainability - Smart Grid, Smart Cities, AMI
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Next Generation Data Storage - File Cluster, Streaming DB, Hybrid Stores (Column/Row DB)
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Software Security, Productivity, Complexity, and Quality - Rengineering, Machine Learning, Composite Applications
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Software as a Service and Cloud Computing
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Usability - HCI, Smart Debugging and Testing
Featured Blog:
Will there be no more CIOs? Why cloud computing is not like electricity
In Paul Hofmann's most recent blog he writes about why cloud computing is not like electricity. He gives an answer to the burning question, "Will there be no more CIOs?"
Businesses rely no less on electricity than on IT. Yet corporations don't need a "Chief Electricity Officer" and a staff of highly trained professionals to manage and integrate electricity into their businesses. Does the historical adoption of electricity offer a useful analogy for today's innovations in cloud computing?
While the utility model offers some insights, we must go beyond this simple analogy to understand cloud computing's real challenges and opportunities. In a CACM Viewpoint paper we (Erik Brynjolfsson from MIT Sloan, John Jordan from Penn State and I) give six reasons why IT won't be like electricity as Nicholas Carr claims in his book The Big Switch.
To read Paul's blog and associated comments, click here.
Find out more about what others are doing with SAP Labs
The Group of the Chief Scientist sponsors classes at acclaimed US universities in order to use the creative student potential. These classes are structured so that a small group of graduate students work to solve a problem SAP proposes.
In the United States, the Group of the Chief Scientist is connected with several universities including:
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Carnegie Mellon
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Cornell
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MIT
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Stanford
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UC Berkeley
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and others...
Learn more about these students opportunities and projects here.
Sponsored Conferences
Featured Conferences:
Overview Information
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Contact:
Paul Hofmann
Vice President, Research
paul.hofmann@sap.com
Sponsored Research Projects
Click here to view the list of projects SAP's Group of the Chief Scientist is currently affiliated with.
SAP Research in China
For additional information on SAP Research in China, click here.
Press Coverage
Highlights:
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How IT can give companies a competitive advantage (Charlie Rose Show)
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Students of Cornell University proposed how to better allocate resources for SAP customer Canadian National Rails
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SAP in HBR article Investing in the IT That Makes a Competitive Difference (Podcast)
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SAP Academic Research on Secure SaaS using IBE gets rave reviews!