Bill McDermott ran SAP's federal side when we camped out there — then ran SAP itself

Who this is

Bill McDermott ran SAP's federal and public-sector side in the era when Jonathan Hare, in his own phrase, used to camp out at SAP — the go-to-market track reached separately from Doug Merritt's product sponsorship, the pincer that working a matrixed giant required. The federal context in Hare's account: SAP's DC group had been thrown out of a deal with a GSA technology-acquisition body, the specifics of which are an open ask. McDermott's subsequent arc — CEO of SAP, then of ServiceNow — is public history; the record holds him at the working junction.

Bill McDermott ran SAP's federal and DC organization when Hare's work engaged it — the go-to-market side of the two-armed approach into SAP, entered independently of Doug Merritt's product-side sponsorship, in an era the transcript recalls around a GSA federal-technology-acquisitions dispute. McDermott's later arc — chief executive of SAP, then of ServiceNow — makes him one of enterprise software's defining sales leaders, and puts another of the record's early working relationships at the summit of the industry. The engagement's specifics are the ask.

Connected from here

There is no single root. This is one view of the graph, from this node — what you see depends on where you enter and what you are looking for.

Where this came from

Everything above is a distillation. The primary source is published in full, so that any claim on this page can be walked back to what was actually said — and where the two differ, the source governs.

What is missing, and how to fix it

This entry is deliberately incomplete. The gaps below are the things only certain people can settle — and settling one is a contribution like any other: recorded, timestamped and attributed to whoever made it.

• The GSA deal's specifics
• Any direct thread, from Hare
• The federal engagement's dates and scope, from the archives