SAP's TechEd event this week in Barcelona placed Fiori, the vendor's strategic user interface paradigm, in the spotlight with the announcement of two new services, Fiori cloud edition and Fiori mobile service.
Fiori was introduced in May 2013 and has since become the focal point for all new SAP user interface development in its packaged applications. As for customers' existing SAP ERP landscapes, Fiori until now has been aimed at on-premises deployments. As the SAP release notes:
The cloud edition of SAP Fiori, now in controlled availability, is a planned new SAP HANA Cloud Platform service that intends to enable customers to simplify the implementation and adoption of SAP Fiori, which helps renew and modernize customers’ on-premise SAP Business Suite. It is planned to be delivered with a limited number of SAP Fiori apps across lines of business, including human resources (HR), customer relationship management (CRM) and retail, covering use cases that are the most frequently and commonly used, such as manager approvals and employee self-service tasks.
General availability of Fiori cloud edition is set for the first quarter of next year.
Meanwhile, the Fiori mobile service will also be delivered from HCP. SAP describes the key goals for it as such:
With SAP Fiori mobile service, users are expected to have an easier way to interact with SAP Fiori from a mobile device with compiled apps that support app security and native device feature access and offline access for both user interfaces (UI) and data.
It wasn't immediately clear when the mobile Fiori service will become generally available.
Collectively, the services will provide many benefits across user types, SAP says:
End users gain simpler access to SAP Fiori apps and a consumer-grade UX that is expected to help increase productivity by enabling business tasks to be completed from either a desktop or mobile device.
Administrators are expected to get better insight into SAP Fiori app adoption and utilization and reduce the need for training by delivering an engaging on-device experience. Simplified operations, wizards and administration processes intend to help users configure and operate SAP Fiori.
Developers are planned to be able to focus on developing cross-platform, hybrid apps and have easier control of advanced mobile qualities such as offline data access and native device features.
POV: SAP has placed a big bet on Fiori, which hit an initial stumbling block when user groups pushed back against the vendor, saying Fiori should be included as part of maintenance rather than be charged for separately. SAP ultimately relented, although Fiori does require the HANA database for many scenarios and app types.
"It is ironic that pricing was a stumbling block, but it turned out it was more an excuse," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "Now that Fiori is free, it really is up to SAP to make sure adoption is easy. As such, it has moved from a tool for UX designers, to a platform that is on the way to empower business users to improve the UI of their SAP appliations."
Still, it has taken well over two years for SAP to announce these mobile and cloud services, which will round out customers' deployment options.
Meanwhile, the introduction this year of SAP's next-generation ERP suite, S/4HANA, could complicate the Fiori adoption path for customers running SAP Business Suite today.
"People are questioning how much to invest in the UI if the back end is changing," Mueller says. It's really a matter of whether customers should hold off on Fiori until making the upgrade to S/4HANA, he adds.
Nonetheless, "at the same time, we've seen Fiori morphing from a UI approach to a methodology, to a tool, and now to a platform," Mueller reiterates. "It’s good to see the maturation and greater value created for SAP customers that are motivated to improve the usability of their SAP solutions."
Still, the new Fiori cloud and mobile services could make it more appealing for customers to move now, although they will involve separate fees apart from maintenance. (For what it's worth, SAP says customers can save up to 25 percent over time running Fiori on HCP rather than on-premises, as ASUGNews.com reports.)
Given the planned timing of those services releases, expect to see a fully fleshed-out Fiori strategy from SAP, and perhaps some strong customer references, by the time Sapphire Now rolls around in May.
