SAP, the world's largest business software company, said Léo Apotheker has been replaced as CEO. The SAP Executive Board, in agreement with the SAP Supervisory Board, has appointed two Co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, both already members of the SAP Executive Board. Dennis Howlett, on ZDNet, writes that Mr Apotheker's departure wasn't unexpected. But it was surprising that the company acted so soon. The choice of new leaders should not be surprising but hardly imaginative. In effect, SAP has chosen ‘last men standing’ rather than taking what some of us thought might be a bold move by appointing an outsider. SAP is headquartered in Germany

While a major event for the SAP community, like almost all SAP events, few major announcements were made at SAP TechEd 2009. Because SAP sits in a remarkable position across incredibly diverse industries, the company can observe IT spend, helping them predict macroeconomic forces, as well as watch which technologies are deployed and for what purpose, giving the company incredible insight into change, and even upheaval, in what processes and tools matter. The ability for SAP to capitalize on this knowledge is always the subject of lively debate, and one I will pick up in later post. The key perspectives share for me are the focus of this post. First, SAP gave a clear view of the general direction it would like to head. In an invite-only se

You gotta admire people who have a sense of humor about what their company does: You need to buy a minimum of 5 cars in license You need at least 1/2 year to adapt your street, garage and parking space to use your SAP ECar But you can run it on bicycle tires, train tracks and hula hoop-rings The door handles are on the underside of the car The steering wheel makes 20 clicking sounds when you turn it, because all 4 tires - including the spare tire - send back multiple messages You can see your whole driving record, but not the current street that you drive, because of missing authorizations The repair contract was just increased from 17% to 22% fee, though simple repairs take 2 weeks; but they are available 24/7

Today marks the start of the SAP TechEd gathering in Phoenix, Arizona. In case you’re unfamiliar with the event, it’s an IT conference with a focus on inspiring the attendees as well as providing hands on workshops, lectures and community discussions. We’ll be covering live, in our typical liveblog format, the event from start to finish. SiliconANGLE regular contributor Idarose Sylvester will be spearheading the effort, though if you plan to attend, and you’re just a reader or member of the SiliconANGLE community, we’d love to include your coverage along with hers and the other handpicked tweets and posts we come across during the event. >> Watch our coverage live I’m particularly looking forward to the keynote speech

I’m liveblogging from the SAP Academic Research Conference - at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. If you’re viewing this post from a reader or syndicated site, you should click through to SiliconANGLE or the Venture Chronicles to view the live blog as it autoupdates. SAP Academic Research Conference