Over the past two years, China designated nearly 200 cities, including metropolises such as the capital Beijing and county-level urban areas, to trial smart-city projects. SAP is the funding partner for China's smart city project.

Plattner appreciates the beauty of simplicity. "Two decades ago, we did a little remake of the SAP user interface," he said. "In the American expression, we put lipstick on a pig."

"A system that pretends to be beautiful for a very simple" purpose is overdone, he said.

When global consumer IT giants such as Apple and Google Inc went with their so-called flat design, they simplified the user interface. SAP decided to follow.

"People do not do (over decoration) anymore," Plattner said. "They would spend two hours or more on personal devices each day. This is dominating the world and that's how YouTube, Facebook and Google became popular. This is what they do now."

Plattner praised Google as a "master" of simple design.

"It is important for the future of SAP to have a user interface which is on par with the Facebookers, with the Googlers, with the ebays because the software for enterprise use is tending to ditch their cold outlook and learn from consumer-oriented companies," he said.

Facebook Inc runs an online social networking site and ebay Inc operates an online auction site.

It is uncommon that a tech veteran who enjoyed dealing with the code lines needed to create software is also willing to spend a great amount of time explaining how important a user design would alter the corporation's business.

"I can only tell the SAP managers to listen to the customers to whom we made a promise we would change the user interface," he said. "Let the normal users test the products, the ones who only use SAP products half an hour each day."

SAP has pledged to introduce a user interface more suitable for modern-day use.

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