SAP looks to Microsoft, Adobe for friendlier ERP UI
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InfoWorld - SAPÂ is pushing ahead with two partnerships that aim to provide customers with better user interface options for its ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications.
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Computer Associates International (CA) has selected SAPÂ as its vendor for a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to replace a collection of homegrown accounting systems. Services firm AccentureÂ will assist with the implementation, CA said Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - AmberPoint on Tuesday will extend its Web services and SOA management system to SAP's NetWeaver business process platform and services based on the ABAP (Advanced Business Application Program) programming language. Through a Development Cooperation Agreement, AmberPoint SOA Management System will provide performance analysis and debugging in the application development stage, quality assurance during staging, and application-level visibility, said Ed Horst, vice president of marketing at AmberPoint. With SAP getting ready to release application components as Web services, AmberPoint is looking to offer management of SAP-based Web services and visibility into ABAP as well, Horst said. "This [arrangement] provides management for those services and a heterogeneous environment around it," Horst said. Organizations using Web services running on NetWeaver will have out-of-the-box integration capabilities with the AmberPoint management platform. Visibility and control will be provided across heterogeneous application networks, including Java and ABAP Web services on NetWeaver. "The major benefit [of the integration] is SOA has lots of pieces to it and SAP will be large part of the landscape, and our job -- our mandate -- is to provide out-of-the-box management for as much of the SOA environment as possible," Horst said. The company's AmberPoint for SAP package will provide an interface between AmberPoint and SAP. With the AmberPoint deal, SAP gets visibility into the larger SOA environment, said analyst Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director at Burton Group. The deal represents a big win for AmberPoint because SAP traditionally never makes deals with little companies, Manes said. SAP likely has been finding AmberPoint in accounts and is getting word from customers, she said. "Custom integration between AmberPoint and NetWeaver will ensure a turnkey SOA management solution for the SAP environment that seamlessly integrates with other SOA environments," Manes said. "I see no downside to this partnership for AmberPoint, SAP, or their respective customers," Manes said. AmberPoint can interface with NetWeaver now; an extension for ABAP is due by the end of 2006. AmberPoint's announcement is being made at the SAP TechEd '06 conference in Las Vegas. SAP officials could not be reached for comment on Monday. InfoWorldEditor-at-Large Eric Knorr contributed to this report
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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 acquired Norwegian software company iLytix Systems earlier this month in a move aimed at introducing a new business intelligence (BI) tool to its small business product suite, Business One. The tool, XL Reporter, enables Business One users to export data to Microsoft's Excel program without having to reformat each report. It also allows them to create new financial and business reports or modify existing ones, schedule reports for automatic delivery, and create "what if" scenarios quickly with new point-and-click and drag-and-drop features.
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SAP and Business Objects have announced the first joint products from their merger, although the planned tight integration of the companies&#39; software will take longer to achieve.SAP agreed to pay $6.8 billion for the business intelligence vendor in October. It has now secured more than 87 percent of Business Objects&#39; shares, more than enough to control the company, CEO Henning Kagermann said at a press conference on Wednesday.Business Objects is now a division of SAP led by its former CEO, John Schwarz. The plan is to integrate its analytics technology more tightly with SAP&#39;s business applications, but also to keep selling standalone products that work with other vendors&#39; software.&quot;While we&#39;ll clearly align ourselves to SAP, we are equally committed to non-SAP customers, platforms and environments,&quot; Schwarz said. &quot;Our intention is to have a business intelligence solution on top of Oracle that&#39;s better than Oracle&#39;s own business intelligence solution.&quot;The companies announced nine software packages that will go on sale this month and combine products from Business Objects and SAP. They include Financial Performance Management, Governance, Risk and Compliance, and Visualization and Reporting.The financial package, for example, includes strategy management and planning tools from SAP and financial consolidation and profit management tools from Business Objects, said Doug Merrit, the head of SAP&#39;s Business User division.Those products were already sold separately, and the packages don&#39;t involve any significant integration work. They are intended to give the companies&#39; sales teams something to go out and sell -- although customers should also see a pricing benefit compared with buying the products separately, Schwarz said.The long-term goal is to integrate the companies&#39; software more tightly to form what Kagermann called a &quot;closed loop.&quot; The idea is that SAP users, acting on information from Business Objects&#39; analytics tools, will be able to more quickly adjust underlying business processes running in SAP Netweaver, Kagermann said.SAP will also offer Business Objects&#39; tools as part of its new suite of on-demand business applications for medium-sized enterprises, called Business ByDesign. The team developing Business ByDesign &quot;will be able to pick the best from the Business Objects portfolio and merge it into Business ByDesign,&quot; Kagermann said.Business Objects already offered its products on demand and had 70,000 subscribers at the time of the acquisition, Schwarz said. The job of merging the BI tools into Business ByDesign has not yet started, however, he said.Business ByDesign is still very new. SAP aimed to have about 100 customers live on the system by the end of 2007, a modest target, and its goal for 2008 is &quot;to prove that we can build a profitable volume business,&quot; Kagermann said.SAP&#39;s news coincided with the announcement from its biggest rival,&#160;Oracle, that it reached a deal to buy middleware vendor BEA Systems for $8.5 billion.BEA is in a different business from Business Objects, but Oracle&#39;s move to expand itself further through another big acquisition only helps to validate SAP&#39;s decision to acquire Business Objects. It was the biggest deal in SAP&#39;s history and broke the vendor&#39;s tradition of not acquiring large companies.SAP bought Business Objects for its technology, not its customers, Kagermann said Wednesday, although he sounded pleased about the new customers that SAP will gain.&quot;After you eliminate the joint customers, we&#39;ll have by far the largest installed customer base in the world. There will be probably more than 60,000 customers using one of our products,&quot; he said.Asked about the BEA deal, Kagermann seemed reluctant to be drawn away from discussing SAP&#39;s own merger, but he did take a quick jab at his rival.&quot;So far we are competing very successfully in the market,&quot; he said. &quot;I was a bit surprised [by the BEA acquisition] because Oracle has said they are the leading technology company, and now they are acquiring technology, which is interesting to me.&quot;SAP Deputy CEO Leo Apotheker was more outspoken. &quot;He has to pay more and more for less and less,&quot; he said after the press conference, referring to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. BEA is &quot;not really that big,&quot; he said.Kagermann reiterated that SAP&#39;s strategy is to grow its core businesses -- applications and middleware -- organically, but it won&#39;t rule out another big acquisition to strengthen the company in a new market.
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German business software firm SAP AG unveiled new enterprise software aimed at information workers during its TechEd developer conference in Las Vegas.  SAP Enterprise Search goes much "deeper" than ordinary text-based search engine, claimed officials at the Waldorf-based firm.
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Vishal Sikka, SAP's chief software architect, describes the company's software-as-a-service approach.
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Services and software companies IBM   and SAP , longtime technology partners, will  bring out their first joint software product in the fourth  quarter of this year, the two companies said on Monday.
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German business software vendor SAP AG released a new version of its SAP Business One software with several functions designed for small and medium-size manufacturers.
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SAP has a new SaaS suite, which may end up being its biggest competitor.
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SAP on Tuesday gave employees a heads up that its business user organization will move over to Business Objects, a company its acquiring as part of a $6.8 billion acquisition, according to sources.
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Vendors of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can expect their market to become more buoyant as companies ponder purchasing new systems or boosting the functionality of existing ones, according to ...
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The Atlantic project will allow users to access SAP's Business Suite through IBM's Lotus Notes.
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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.
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SAP's upcoming suite of hosted apps, code-named A1S, is the first of its kind designed for medium-sized businesses.
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SAP on Wednesday introduced a long-delayed line of Web-based business management software for mid-sized companies.