SAP CEO-in-waiting to leave the firm

Shai Agassi to pursue other projects, including the development of alternative energy and the future of state of Israel

Shai Agassi is leaving SAP at the end of this month, the firm said last night in a surprise announcement.

Agassi was expected to take over the enterprise applications giant once the current chief executive, Henning Kagermann, retires. However, an extension of Kagermann’s reign seems to have changed matters.

In a statement, SAP chairman Hasso Plattner said: “I had shared with Shai my plan that he should become successor to Henning Kagermann as a co-CEO for SAP. With the extension of Henning’s contract to 2009, it became apparent that Shai was not comfortable committing to a 10-15 year period, which was not in keeping with his personal career timeline. Given this, I made the recommendation to the supervisory board that we change our plans and now adjust SAP’s executive management team responsibilities.”

Agassi will stay on as a consultant to the board but the majority of his time will be spent on other projects, including the development of new energy sources, environmental policy and the future of his native Israel.

At SAP, Agassi has been a proponent of its NetWeaver integration platform, but the company’s response to the growth in on-demand software has recently been questioned.

Zach Nelson, chief executive of on-demand applications firm NetSuite, quipped, “Apparently Shai thinks solving global warming will be easier than sorting out SAP's mid-market application strategy. He's probably right.”

Rene Bonvanie, an SAP executive who left the company recently for Salesforce.com, said in a recent interview with IT Week that Agassi had not been a leading proponent of on-demand at SAP.