Whither SAP and Project Argo?
January 31, 2011
On Friday, I had a chat with a flashy New York investment type. The topic was SAP. Apparently the Harvard MBA saw an old write up I did for the now disappeared Information World Review. (If anyone knows about this publication, let me know, please. My last column fell into a black hole. Sigh. Publishers.)
The flashy MBA had heard about Project Argo. The question, “What’s up?” My answers was: “I have no idea.” I poked around the Overflight junk bin and realized that after 2007, it seems to have dropped off the open source radar. The disappearance of a search engine or a publication is nothing new, of course. I found it interesting.
Where is Project Argo?
I wanted to capture the few items of information I had about SAP’s Project Argo, so if I get a similar question in three or four years, I won’t have to dig through so much digital detritus.
Some “facts” from open sources:
- Argo, a search system from the same outfit with TREX, became available for download in 2006. There was some chatter on message boards about the system’s requirements, but I found no information indicating that it swept the SAP world with excitement. The preview version disappeared in the middle of 2007.
- According to “The State of SAP xApps”, Project Argo was part of xApps. What are/were xApps? I think there were “composite” applications. I think this means “federating” methods so users could look one place for information.
- The focus was, according to “SAP to Add Enterprise Search with Project Argo” was, software that “extends SAP enterprise search to connect to Web services. A generic Web service that invokes search services such as Google is included in the beta version, according to information obtained from the SAP Developer Network Web site. Argo gives end users one central entry point to search company information from various data sources. With a single search query, users can use desktop widgets, browsers, e-mail and mobile devices to tap into company data from multiple sources.”
After Argo dimmed, SAP via one of its money units pumped some cash into Endeca, the e-commerce and search vendor. This deal took place in 2008, and I anticipated that SAP would do more than hire former SAP employee Jeff Murphy, who serves as Endeca’s senior vice president of global sales and general manager of public sector.
So for me, the information I reviewed suggested this trajectory: TREX to Project Argo, Project Argo to Endeca, Endeca to ?. SAP has been chasing the cloud, fighting with Oracle or admitting wrongdoing to Oracle, and generally making a large number of tactical moves to keep stakeholders smiling in these troubled times.
If any one has additional information or links to Project Argo, please, use the comments section of this blog to share them. I am not ready to say, “lights out” for Argo, but there’s not much action in my Overflight system.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2011
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Comments
2 Responses to “Whither SAP and Project Argo?”
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Stephen – TREX is very much alive and well. It is a technology not a final product – was never sold as such. It became the basis for several products, including (what was then known as) BIA – Business Intelligence Accelerator. Now it is called BWA. This is a remarkable product in both its innovations and value to customers. TREX technology is also found in the new HANA projects sponsored by Hasso and Vishal Sikka. The team behind it is fantastic, and so is the technology.
There are others who can (and likely will) comment on xApps and Argo. Those were remarkable products as well and have since grown into other areas.
Incidentally, even if some of these product efforts failed, so what? Your implication that the company introduced Argo to “keep shareholders smiling…” reeks of cynicism. Companies try new projects all the time, and not all succeed. Should they just not try in your opinion?
I credit SAP for trying – regardless of the success of the products.
Nimish Mehta
Hi Stephen,
first of all, I’d like to repeat my offer that I am open for questions and discussion. Some of the quuestions your article is raising could easily have been clarified.
Project “Argo”, for instance, has contributed to what is now SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search. Besides deep search integration into the SAP Business Suite it fetaures many of the functionalities of Argo. It supports the federation of REST services following the OpenSearch standard (www.opensearch.org) and can act both as a service consumer and as a service provider via that statndard. Thus, you can show Amazon results in the SAP UI or SAP results in MS Sharepoint to name just two examples.
What’s more, SAP also provides a SOAP defintion that enables any backed that can be accessed by such Web Services to publish itself for indexing by SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search.
The user interface of SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search has evolved to be ABAP-based (rather than Java-based, like “Argo” was) and has taken over most features that “Argo” had and has added to that list substantially.
The only thing that is really not there anymore is the free download of “Argo”. That is, because “Argo” had always been a research project in the wider field of Enterprise Search and was always communicated as such.
It has done its job to contribute to SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search in which it is now “included” from a feature standpoint.
Best,
Karsten
PS: Great choice of image, because, yes, the name came from the search quest of Jason and his crew.