HASSO PLATTNER, THE spark-plug co-founder and former chief executive of SAP, always held annual executive retreats in the dead of winter at his thatch-roof cottage on the island of Sylt, a Martha's Vineyard look-alike on Germany's sea-coast. The forbidding weather kept people focused on what transpired in his spartan living room. But the 2003 meeting, Plattner's last as CEO, was more intense than he would have preferred. SAP's software license revenues-a key measure of future health-had shrunk the previous year for the first time since the company broke them out. Was SAP over the hill?
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