Henrik Wagner, the head of SAP relations at EMC, shared some of his perspective on business software, and value, together with VCE’s D.J. Long during an interview with Dave Vellante on the Cube (see full video below).

Speaking at SAP SAPphire 2012, Wagner started by noting how he considers this particular conference as a unique opportunity to talk bottom line with customers, from the financial perspective rather than the technical aspect that is the prime focus of many other tech gatherings.

Long in turn got right to the point, making an observation about the ‘resistance’ to virtualization some traditional SAP clients demonstrate. He went on about how the advantages of Vblock often go unrecognized, at least initially, and Wagner continued this line of thought.

The EMC exec pointed at the areas that CIOs are looking at from the get-go – risk reduction, better SLAs and enhanced end user experience. EMC is addressing these bulletins as a part of its collaboration with SAP, and VCE apparently has been rounding out its own portfolio as well.

Responding to a question raised by Vellante, Long listed data protection and recovery as one very definitive area that his company’s offering addresses.  It’s a part of the value proposition behind using running SAP apps on Vblock, he said, also stressing that the 45 days it takes to deploy the solution put VCE in a rather competitive position compared to other vendors.

Another topic that Vellante looked into is the potential flip side of VCE – the cost of the integration, and that customers may be worrying of consequent vendor lock-in. Long took up this question as well, saying that his company is more than compensating for the price tag with higher return on investment delivered within a relatively short timeframe.

From here the conversation branched off to several other areas, including HANA and some of the other trends joint SAP customers are starting to get involved with. For the whole story, check out the interview below.


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