The decisions that made it
The Ecosystem Lock-In · Moat & Competition
SAP's 2027 Deadline Isn't a Cliff. It's a Funnel SAP Built on Purpose.
SAP's '2027 ECC deadline' is sold as a hard wall. It's a migration funnel - already moved once from 2025, already softened to 2030 and 2033. Yet €63.3B of cloud backlog (+43% in FY2024) suggests the trapped customers are paying their way deeper in, not out.
8 min
The Adjacency Expansion · Growth & Portfolio
SAP Didn't Expand Into the Cloud. It Bought Its Way In, at a 52% Premium.
Between 2011 and 2014 SAP spent over $16 billion buying SuccessFactors, Ariba, and Concur — paying premiums of 52%, 20%, and 20%. The official story is a cloud strategy. The real story is what happens when an incumbent can't build the thing it needs and has to buy market position instead.
8 min
The Reversal · Decision Forks
SAP Didn't Persuade Its Customers to Move to the Cloud. It Set a Deadline.
SAP's cloud revenue hit €17.14 billion in 2024, up 25%, while software licenses fell to €1.40 billion. The pivot worked - but not because customers chose it. SAP simply scheduled the day the old software stops getting security patches: December 2030.
8 min
The Market-Entry Gambit · Growth & Portfolio
SAP Didn't Sell Software. It Moved Into Your Data Center and Never Left.
Five engineers left IBM in 1972 with no funding and built the company that runs business. The trick wasn't better code — it was working inside customers' own data centers, getting paid by them, and using each giant's name to scare the next one into buying.
8 min
The Market-Entry Gambit · Growth & Portfolio
SAP Runs Half the World's Big Businesses From a German Town of 15,000. That's Not the Weakness It Looks Like.
A 52-year-old company headquartered in Walldorf — population 15,000 — booked €34 billion in revenue and a €63 billion cloud backlog in 2024. The provincial address was never the handicap everyone assumed. It was the moat.
8 min