Event Report: Questions Every #SAPPHIRENOW Attendee Should Be Asking SAP

TORONTO — Bank of Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s largest banks, took issue on Friday with Standard & Poor’s decision to cut its debt ratings, saying its international reach helps cushion it from a slowdown in Canadian lending. S&P downgraded credit ratings on six Canadian financial institutions late on Thursday, a move that could raise their borrowing costs and crimp profit margins on the loans they make.

SAP's fastest-selling product of all time, known as HANA, may not be as growing as fast as the company says, according to one Wall Street analyst.

By Dana Blankenhorn: Since announcing in December it would pay $3.4 billion for SuccessFactors a SaaS company involved in human resources (they call them cloud vendors now), SAP (SAP) has taken its shareholders on a fairly wild ride.

"We are finally the ‘in’ thing," said Roger Kilmer, director of National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) to the more than 800 manufacturers and industry experts gathered at the Manufacturing Innovation 2012 conference yesterday in Orlando, Fla. "Everyone from the media to the political pundits to your neighbors—they're all talking about manufacturing. It's now clear. We need to be a nation that makes things." The annual conference helps manufacturers and other industry experts learn critical tools for ensuring that U.S. companies are constantly innovating and continually improving the products to compete and win in the global marketplace. The overarching theme of the meeting is, "Make it in America," and through exhibits and conference talks, attendees learned about many companies succeeding in the marketplace with U.S.-made products.  "We don't want to just tell you to be innovative. We want to show you how to be innovative," said Kilmer.

Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits: Cisco’s disappointing third quarter outlook had analysts pondering whether the company can take an onslaught of pricing pressure from HP (HPQ) and Juniper (

Naveen Selvaraj submits:While there are rounds of applause after SAP AG (SAP), the leading business applications vendor declared Q1 results (see earnings call transcript here), the numbers to me raise more questions than answers.