Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down how DynaTech Systems enabled Solmax to turn operational complexity into global efficiency with D365, Power BI, and Microsoft Fabric.

Highlights

00:03 — Today I want to take a bit of a dive into a specific case study: the story about the impact of digital transformation enabled by one company on the business outcomes of another. I love having the opportunity to explore stories like this because, as important as it is to discuss the technology itself, how it's implemented and what that implementation can lead to is just as critical.

00:41 — Solmax is a leading geosynthetics manufacturer focused on civil and environmental infrastructure, operating across four continents through 32 legal entities. This broad reach, although great from a growth perspective, was creating challenges such as data silos, inconsistent processes, and a lack of standardized reporting, which affected financial and operational insights.

01:08 — Beyond this, manual processes led to inefficiencies. Complex sales price calculations hindered productivity, and reliance on outdated Microsoft systems resulted in slower Power BI report refresh times. To address these challenges, Solmax had a core goal: the One Organization, One Data, One Reporting initiative.

01:52 — DynaTech has a number of solutions it will tailor to suit the outcomes of an individual client. In the case of Solmax, the company opted for its finance optimization solution. After process consulting, DynaTech enabled a greenfield implementation of D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management with unified processes across 32 entities.

03:17 — Beyond this, unified real-time dashboards enhanced global reporting, supported faster decision-making, and improved the company's audit readiness. Solmax was able to reduce freight costs, accelerate delivery cycles, improve truck utilization, minimize penalties, and shorten accounts payable and receivable processing times. Less manual intervention meant fewer errors.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how Oracle's leadership transition reflects Larry Ellison's long-term succession plan.

Highlights

00:05 — I wanted to mention here that after 40 years, the long-running show called Larry Ellison's Story Hour has ended. Now, I'm taking a little bit of license here. The Story Hour was the quarterly earnings call for Oracle, and it was 40 years ago that Oracle went public.

00:30 — While he would certainly talk occasionally about the numbers, the financial results, he used those occasions, those earnings calls, to tell the stories of what was going on not just within Oracle, but in the outside world, the direction in which technology was headed, where the business world was headed, and then where the technology was following.

01:15 — Larry Ellison did not make any opening remarks for the first time in 40 years. Last week on their Q4 earnings call, Ellison wasn't even on the call itself. The three executives handled everything. I believe they did a great job, so no disrespect toward them, but it's just kind of not going to be the same.

02:24 — In about two months, Larry Ellison is going to have his 82nd birthday. He has been building up to this moment for about the last 12 years. Larry Ellison, I think, clearly believes he does not need to be on these earnings calls anymore because the company is in great hands with its new CEOs.

04:10 — I am not trying to say that Larry Ellison is riding off into any sunset, but I do think it was just a momentous occasion here when he decided 40 years of the Larry Ellison Story Hour on these earnings calls is enough, and time for a new chapter. Larry Ellison has a lot of work in a lot of different areas, and clearly he is deeply focused on them.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I compare Oracle, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and AWS through the lens of backlog growth and future demand.

Highlights

00:02 — I talked last week a little bit about Oracle's Q4 results, very strong across the board. I wanted to go into a little more detail today about one number in particular: its RPO, remaining performance obligation. That's contracted business not yet recognized as revenue.

00:18 — Some people refer to it as RPO. It's also known as pipeline or backlog. But with what Oracle reported for Q4, its AI and cloud backlog, pipeline, or RPO is now the largest in the world: $638 billion. It's even bigger than Microsoft's. This reveals a lot about who's got momentum into the future.

01:02 — So, as I said, Oracle's RPO for the quarter ended May 31 was $638 billion, up 363%. A couple of months ago, when Microsoft reported its fiscal Q3 and calendar Q1 numbers for the period ended March 31, it reported RPO of $627 billion, up 99%. So, Oracle beats them slightly on total RPO, but look at the difference in the growth rate: 99% versus 363%.

02:20 — But when we flip the arrow of time from the recent past, which revenue reflects, into the future, that's where we see Oracle is just winning an outlandish share of the business going forward, even more than Microsoft. We're seeing more and more of that pipeline, or RPO, over time convert to revenue for both of these companies.

03:40 — These are multiplier effects, and again, my point here is about who's growing faster and who is moving into leadership positions going forward. Clearly, as Microsoft and AWS led the first chapter of the cloud, here in the AI chapter, the leaders jumping out in front, growing faster, and finding new ways of doing things are Oracle and Google Cloud.

04:12 — Speaking of AWS, how does it fit into this whole RPO tale of the tape? AWS refers to this as backlog, and in its most recent quarter, ended March 31, it said that its backlog was $364 billion, up 49%. For Google Cloud, its backlog is $462 billion, growing at 98%. So clearly, all three companies are outperforming AWS in this backlog/RPO space.

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In this Cloud Wars Special report, Bob Evans speaks with Jan Gilg about how AI is reshaping enterprise software and why the next phase of innovation will depend on trust, governance, business outcomes, and clean data. Gilg explains how SAP is positioning its Autonomous Suite as a foundation for the autonomous enterprise, combining ERP, business processes, and AI agents.

Trust Powers Enterprise AI

The Big Themes:

Autonomous Enterprise Vision: Jan Gilg said Sapphire generated strong enthusiasm because customers finally heard a clear vision for enterprise AI. Rather than focusing solely on AI models or isolated features, SAP presented an integrated strategy built around the Autonomous Suite and Business AI. While consumer AI has dramatically improved personal productivity, enterprise leaders need AI that can help make critical business decisions and automate end-to-end processes. SAP's message resonated because it connected AI directly to business execution, positioning enterprise systems as the foundation for autonomous operations rather than treating AI as a standalone technology layer.

AI Economics Matter: Another major topic was the cost of AI. Gilg noted that enterprises are becoming increasingly focused on transparency, consumption, and measurable outcomes. As AI usage expands, costs can grow rapidly, creating new concerns for business leaders. Customers want detailed visibility into which agents are being used, how resources are consumed, and whether the resulting business value justifies the expense. Gilg compared this need for transparency to a detailed telephone bill.

Data Quality Determines Success: The interview concluded with examples demonstrating that AI success depends heavily on modernized systems and clean data. Gilg spoke of initiatives involving retailers such as H&M, where AI can improve customer experiences, fulfillment, and revenue generation. He also referenced work with Bayer and discussed ExxonMobil’s modernization journey. These examples reinforced a key point: AI delivers the greatest value when built on standardized processes, strong master data, and simplified architectures.

The Big Quote: “You have to lead with value. Yes, technology is exciting, but it does nothing if the customer doesn't see the outcome."

More from Jan Gilg and SAP:

Follow Jan Gilg on LinkedIn or learn more about Autonomous Suite.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, explore how SAP's Autonomous Suite could become the operating system for AI-powered enterprises

Highlights

00:02 — The company that more than 50 years ago really started the whole enterprise applications business, SAP, last month at its big Sapphire event rolled out the latest, greatest, newest AI-powered version of their long-running ERP suite, but this time it's called the Autonomous Suite, so that's a huge change.

00:33 — I had a chance to sit down with Jan Gilg, who's Global President for Customer Success for the Americas at SAP headquarters and asked about a number of things that customers have the opportunity to move into with this newer, more fully integrated, more AI-powered Autonomous Suite. And I know there's been some risk that SAP took in selecting this name.

01:49 — Jan's been in SAP for about 15 years. He was on the development side for a long time, and he was leading, several years ago, the development of S/4HANA and that whole version of the suite.

02:36 — We talked about this issue of trust. Autonomous is right there in the name. It's one thing for different autonomous technologies to manage things. But, when you talk about the autonomous enterprise ... we got into the discussion of what SAP has to do to build up trust among its customers.

03:28 — What's the interplay between agentic AI and applications going in both directions? Oracle can now refer to its Fusion Applications as Agentic Applications. Is SAP doing everything it can to clarify in the minds of customers where applications end and agents begin, and the same thing in the other direction? Jan has some great thoughts on that.

04:12 — Everybody in the company, I guess, was running tokens 24 hours a day. So, Jan has some good thoughts on this. And then we talked about customer examples. Let's see, there was one from the retailer H&M, there was one from a manufacturing company, and we had some different ones in here that he brought up. But he really brought some good perspectives on that.

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