SAP gives its enterprise tools an upgrade
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"Enhancement package" for MySAP ERP includes new human resources and financial management tools, as well as industry-specific add-ons.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to unveil new versions of its Dynamics GP and SL ERP software that improve integration with Office applications and SharePoint Server tools.
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SAP has unwrapped a new on-demand business software platform targeted at midsize companies (100 to 500 employees) looking to simplify their I.T. requirements while improving the efficiency and flexibility of their business processes.
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Compuware this week is upgrading its Vantage application service management software to highlight predictive analysis and performance assessment.
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SAP America Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are collaborating on a hosted enterprise resource planning software service for midsize companies in specific vertical markets.
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(InfoWorld) - SAP AG is making a major change in the way it delivers ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications to customers, breaking with the traditional approach of upgrading the entire software release every 12 to 18 months. Instead, SAP committed Tuesday to keeping the current version of its ERP software, mySAP ERP 2005, in place through 2010 and providing new functionality via a steady stream of optional enhancement packages. The vendor made the announcement at its TechEd developer conference taking place in Las Vegas this week. SAP determined the new strategy in response to customer demands, according to Peter Graf, executive vice president of solution marketing for SAP. "The customer is in a dilemma," he said. "They want the least distraction to their business possible, while continually innovating in a very short time frame." Not having to upgrade entire SAP ERP applications on a regular basis and being able to choose which functionality to take on via the optional enhancement packages should help ease the pain, Graf added. MySAP 2005 will act as "a stable backbone" on top of which customers can add new functionality from SAP and its partners, Graf said. It's a very different approach from the several hundred product enhancements the vendor showcased in mySAP ERP 2005, he added. The first enhancement package is due to ship in December. It will include new functionality around talent management and financial collaboration, new composite applications, enterprise services, industry-specific capabilities and possible extensions to SAP's NetWeaver integration platform, Graf said. MySAP is based on NetWeaver. Going forward, SAP will likely issue enhancement packages once every quarter or two, with each package grouped around a particular theme. "We'll make sure we deliver them in a very focused way," Graf said. "For example, we'd say this package is all around talent management. If you want it, go for it. If you're not interested, don't use it." Other enhancement packages will includeÂ CRM (customer relationship management)Â andÂ Project Muse, a new GUI (graphical user interface) to mySAP applications developed through a partnership with Adobe Systems Inc.'s Macromedia business unit. SAP begun making mySAP ERP 2005 generally available in May at its Sapphire user conference in Orlando. So far, 200 to 300 customers are live with the latest ERP software version, Graf said, with several thousand other users live on the earlier release, mySAP 2004. SAP is hoping that users on older versions of its software, notably R/3 4.6C and 4.7, will also rapidly move to mySAP ERP 2005. While the message at Sapphire from SAP executives to its users was to adopt mySAP 2005 sooner rather than later, the message from TechEd is rather more blunt. "There's no mySAP ERP 2007. This is it. Move," Graf said. Â
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Taking a page from major enterprise software providers like Oracle and SAP, Microsoft announced this week Business Ready Customer Care, an initiative that includes major enhancements to its maintenance and support program for Microsoft Dynamics, ERP and CRM, applications.The customer support initiative does three things: Extends for five years the time over which Microsoft will support its products; offers more creative financing solutions for buying its CRM and ERP products, and promises to create a more transparent environment for its channel partners and their customers about future upgrades and products.Industry analyst Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting, said the fact that Microsoft is offering an additional five years of software support is in recognition of how well Oracle's extended support program is working for its customer base.Under the new Microsoft program there will be a total of five years of "mainstream" support for its products plus an additional five years of extended support, according to Christine Bell, director of global services product management, for Microsoft Business Solutions.Greenbaum says the extended support is a smart move on Microsoft's part."Oracle found out that extending support for their applications does not mean customers are gong to stall on [buying] new releases. They [Oracle] have a good upgrade flow despite or maybe because of extended support," Greenbaum said.In today's market, most vendors make upgrades a revenue-neutral event."You still get maintenance revenue either way, so why cause anxiety when you don't have to," added Greenbaum.On the financing side, Microsoft is now offering more options, including financing both the cost of hardware and software.Also available through March 2008 is a program called Smart Pay which will allow customers to select what their monthly payments will be for the first year.Finally, Bell said that Microsoft is making the commitment to deliver statements of directions that look out to the next 12 to 14 months."It will be very specific and talk about features and functionality," said Bell.Microsoft will include written documents on a special partner and customer Web site and will not require signing a non-disclosure agreement.The roadmap details are expected to start in November.
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Oracle has shipped the first major upgrade to the stand-alone enterprise search software itÂ debuted last yearÂ emphasizing new links to third-party data sources and identity management systems.
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SAP plans to expand its focus on business intelligence (BI) software over the next year.
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JasperSoft&#39;s next upgrade of its open-source business intelligence suite, due out Nov. 1, will improve the ability for users to create their own customized reports.
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A new add-on for Office Project Server 2003 includes tools for connecting to HR software from SAP.
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SAP AG  unveiled a  long-awaited line of Web-delivered software on Wednesday that  will radically change the company's business model and may  shake up the Internet software arena.
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With Business Objects now a division of SAP, the companies have announced software packages that combine products from the two.
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A new product lets workers combine simple bits of software to create business tools.
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German business software vendor SAP AG is rolling out a new version of its SAP Business One software with several functions designed for small and medium-size manufacturers.
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(InfoWorld) - Oracle Tuesday announced plans to extend the capability of its system management software to offer monitoring and management for SAP AG applications through a partnership with Nimsoft. The company also unveiled Release 3 of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g and new plug-ins for the product that enable it to manage third-party software. Additionally, Senior Vice President Richard Sarwal made his debut as the executive in charge of stepping up efforts to promote the product as a management system for heterogenous environments. Oracle and Nimsoft are working jointly to integrate the NimBUS SAP R/3 plug-in with Oracle Enterprise Manager 10G so that customers can monitor and manage SAP applications. The plug-in should be available in the second quarter of 2007, according to Nimsoft. Through new plug-ins for BMC Remedy Service Desk and IBM WebSphere MQ versions 5.3 and 6.0 introduced Tuesday, Oracle also added performance monitoring of those third-party products in Oracle Enterprise Manager 10G. All of this is part of Oracle's plan to focus on making enterprise management one of its core product offerings not just for Oracle environments, but across IT systems with products from multiple vendors, said Oracle president Charles Phillips on a conference call Tuesday. "We've undersold this product," he said of Oracle's system management suite. Phillips acknowledged that in the past, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10G has primarily been useful for managing environments that run Oracle software and has been sold along with more popular Oracle products such as its database and applications. However, now that it can support more third-party products, such as JBoss Application Server and IBM WebSphere Application Server along with those unveiled Tuesday, it is a more viable option to compete with rivals such as IBM's Tivoli suite and Hewlett-Packard's OpenView suite. "We were narrowly focused in the past," Phillips said. "Now we have become more complete and more open." To promote this new attitude toward enterprise management, Oracle now has a dedicated sales force paid to sell only Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g, and the company also is training its database and application-server sales representatives so that they can push the product in the marketplace, he said. During the conference call, Sarwal pointed to Oracle's expertise across multiple software infrastructure products, such as database, application server, and business applications, as a strength the company has to offer comprehensive systems management. "We have a unique view of how to manage all of that stack," he said. In addition to its new plug-ins, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10G Release 3 also includes enhanced provisioning capabilities across Oracle's various application offerings and the ability to bring to the surface business metrics from Oracle applications to perform business diagnostics, Sarwal said. Oracle Enterprise Manager 10G Release 3 is available on Linux and Windows. Business customers can evaluate the product for free by downloading it from Oracle's Web site. The new plug-ins also are available now for use only with Release 3.
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The software maker releases an upgraded version of its small-business management applications with new features for coordinating factory work.