Russian history holds the key to knowing when SAP release the new instances of S/4Hana

SAP name each release of S/4Hana according to the month of that year when the new solution is made available. So we have 1511 for release in November 2015, and 1610 for the release in October 2016 and so. Or that's what they want us to believe.

Actually it is clear that they consult the history books, in particular the turbulent rise of Grand Duchy of Muscow and Russia. This would have been under the radar of most observers until 1709 was made available to their customers. Immediately recognisable as the year of the decisive victory over Charles XII and his feared Swedish forces at the battle of Poltava, methinks. In the middle of the Ukraine, a man who had taught himself to feel no pain but forced to delegate because of a painful bullet wound to his foot found his depleted force of around 20,000 men faced by an army 4 times that size led by Peter the Great. Needless to say, the Russians triumphed and Sweden, once the sourge of Northern and Central Europe was supplanted by Russia as the great power of the North.

Before that we have 1610 and we have to go back to the Times of Troubles, and specifically the time shortly after the period popularised in the opera Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky. The Polish - Lithuanian forces had reached their eastern limit and the Russians their nadir. It was about to change. Moscow and Smolensk held out (more or less) and the direction of the war changed.

And what about 1511? This is more opaque. Perhaps the experts were undecided on the outcomes of the fourth Lithuanian-Russian war (1512-1522) and so elected to release the new version to coincide with the final year of peace. Afterall the war started badly for Russia with a series of defeats after their initial incursion of Lithuanian territory around Smolensk.

So what about the timing of the next release? Obviously December this year. Why? Because of the battle of Borodino and the attritional decline of La grande armee. It is clear that they consult Russian high culture as much as they do the history books so why not a reference to one of the key passsages of War and Peace?

And what about next year? That is hard to tell. I doubt anyone can point to any Russian victories in the disastrous war with Japan from 1904 to 1905. And there is no month corresponding to Brusilov's 1916 offensives, or the victories from late 1942 onwards.

And finally why Russian history? Why not German or that of any other country for that matter? That is more interesting. Is it because of similarities with the Great Bear as she swats away more agile but fragile opponents?