Greetings. I have been a ABAP developer for the past 7 years and worked with major clients. Prior to ABAP, I had a good functional background in marketing and part-time accounting. Due to rapid new developments in SAP, I wish to enhance my skills into new areas. Please suggest whether BW or NetWeaver would be good for me (both suit my background). When it comes to BW, I find that there are already many consultants in that area, I don't know if it is still worth pursuing. I have very little understanding of NetWeaver. Could you please guide me? Thanks a lot.
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Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director
I have commented elsewhere that BW and NetWeaver are converging, so as you get experience in the latest releases of BW, you will, by definition, be getting NetWeaver-related skills as well. In terms of choosing between them, I wouldn't. I would pursue BW for now, and see if you can follow BW into NetWeaver. The problem with jumping into NetWeaver now is that there just aren't many jobs out there to support NetWeaver consultants. True, there are more BW consultants, but there is also a lot more BW work out there as well. I agree with you that you need to branch out from your core ABAP skills, but there's an art to finding the "bridge" between current and emerging technologies. BW might be just the way you can move from your current skills to the latest NetWeaver components. Make sure to read previous editions of my career column, as I have written extensively about the career challenges facing ABAP programmers and made a number of practical recommendations.
This was first published in October 2004