SAP to unveil Web-delivered software
95286
FRANKFURT/BOSTON  - SAP AG  will unveil  on Wednesday a line of business management programs to be  delivered over the Web, becoming the first major software  company to make a big bet on software as a service.
360840
(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
94349
Thinks modular for NetWeaver There'll be no more big updates for SAP's ERP software until 2010, as SAP entices customers and developers to adopt new products and initiatives for its NetWeaver SOA strategy.â¦
397605
Company says e-mail, calendar and instant messaging will be offered, along with Web search services on future Web portal applications.
443729
GT Software next week will formally unveil its platform for outfitting mainframe applications with Web services functionality and linking legacy data into SOAs (service-oriented architectures).
650104
Oracle is expected to unveil updates to its software's content management and business intelligence functions, as well as other enhancements at next week's Oracle OpenWorld user event.
537120
(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
281287
OCTOBER 07, 2004  - Looking to penetrate further into the software infrastructure market, applications vendor SAP AG is rolling out a new set of Java and business intelligence enhancements to its NetWeaver middleware and integration stack.
695638
An SAP initiative to more tightly align its business software with Microsoft's tools is about to bear fruit.
86334
(InfoWorld) - SAP AG unwrapped its Enterprise Search application to help customers conduct specific secure queries of structured and unstructured data held in both SAP and non-SAP software. The vendor announced the search application Tuesday at its TechEd developer conference in Las Vegas during a flurry of announcements promoting innovation and simplicity. "We can do deep searches into enterprise data," Peter Graf, executive vice president of solution marketing for SAP, said during a conference call to discuss the news. "We can leverage all the knowledge we have about a user from [SAP] applications in terms of their preferences, roles and authorization for what information they can see." For instance, an individual within a company could carry out queries around the organization's corporate structure as to who reports to whom or determine which of their peers are experts in technologies like Java, he added. The aim is to make enterprise search tied to business context accessible to nontechnical users for a "Google-like" searching capability, according to Graf. "You don't need a very long learning experience to use Enterprise Search," he said. Formerly known as Project Argo, the application runs on SAP's NetWeaver 2004s integration platform. The underlying indexing engine is SAP's existing Trex search technology combined with newly developed search capabilities. SAP developers can download a free trial version of Enterprise Search now from the company'sÂ SAP Developer Network (SDN) Web site. The company plans to make the application commercially available in 2007, at which point SAP will release pricing details. Developers will be able to adjust Enterprise Search so they can use the application to search non-SAP applications, Graf said. They will also be able to embed search capabilities in other applications and create new search services. Enterprise Search has open interfaces so it can hook into third-party information sources and search engines. SAP plans for Enterprise Search to support a number of different user interfaces. The vendor will make the application available as a browser-based user interface for simple Web search and as a desktop widget embedded in its mySAP ERP 2005 enterprise resource planning application. SAP also intends to offer Enterprise Search as an enhancement to its Business Intelligence Accelerator (BIA) product. Graf stressed that Enterprise Search and BIA are complementary technologies, both using in-memory capabilities and being highly scalable.Â SAP released its BIA analytical engine in May after working closely with Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The software enables users to quickly analyze and query vast amounts of business data on the fly without having to pre-aggregate and store the information in a database before querying it. SAP pre-installs BIA on blade servers from HP and IBM. Shai Agassi, president of SAP's product and technology group, described BIA as a "mini-grid and a mini-Google." SAP's main applications rival Oracle Corp. debuted aÂ stand-alone enterprise search product, Oracle Search Enterprise 10g, in March. Other applications players are also looking more seriously at the enterprise search market, including Microsoft Corp. with its Index Server software. Â
599465
SAP AG on Wednesday unveiled a service that evaluates security settings across a customer&#39;s SAP enterprise system. SAP Security Optimization helps customers identify and fix vulnerabilities
103968
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.
654730
Software giant will publish advance notice of security bulletins.
255079
German software giant SAP AG is teaming with Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) to offer midmarket companies in the U.S. a hosted software offering that includes applications, maintenance, services, and support for a monthly fee.
599147
Saying customers have been asking for such a tool, IBM and SAP are building an application that would make it easier for customers to bring their SAP data into their Lotus Notes collaboration systems.
487863
SAP is rolling out a new set of Java and business intelligence enhancements to its NetWeaver middleware and integration stack.
544168
SAP is buying a small Indian software company to help beef up the business process management capabilities in its NetWeaver applications platform.It is purchasing Yasu Technologies, a maker of business rules management software, which helps ensure that business processes automated through software are in compliance with a company&#39;s rules and regulations.SAP characterized the deal, announced at its Tech Ed conference in Munich, Germany, on Wednesday, as a &quot;fill in&quot; acquisition that would bridge a gap in its technologies. The deal is due to close this month and financial terms were not disclosed.Several vendors, including SAP, are providing software tools that allow companies to automate common business processes, such as issuing a purchase order or checking inventory levels, with the goal of making them more efficient.But SAP does not yet offer tools for managing these processes, and buying Yasu will help it to add such BPM (business process management) capabilities to NetWeaver.SAP will begin pilot tests of its first BPM product, code-named Galaxy, in the first quarter of next year. The technology acquired from Yasu will be integrated with Galaxy around the middle of next year, said Klaus Kreplin, SAP&#39;s head of NetWeaver technology.Yasu&#39;s software helps companies to enforce the rules that their business processes must abide by. If a company automates a project approval process, for example, Yasu will send projects under a certain budget to a midlevel manager for approval, and more costly projects to a senior manager.&quot;The nice thing is, you can define rules and make them available as a service that can be integrated with other applications,&quot; Kreplin said.Yasu was founded in 1999 and has about 120 employees. Customers include the automaker BMW, according to its Web site.BPM is one of several areas SAP is entering to compete better with its main applications rival, Oracle. SAP will also offer software for building composite applications, called the NetWeaver Composition Environment, and developing hosted applications for smaller companies, called SAP Business ByDesign.The Galaxy software will be integrated with NetWeaver Composition Environment next year. Eventually that, in turn, will be offered as a part of Business ByDesign, Kreplin said, although he wouldn&#39;t say when.Last week SAP said it would&#160;buy business intelligence vendor Business Objects&#160;for S$6.8 billion. A few days later&#160;Oracle offered to buy BEA Systems, whose software competes with SAP&#39;s NetWeaver, for $6.7 billion, but BEA called the offer too low.SAP CEO Henning Kagermann told the Financial Times of London over the weekend that SAP won&#39;t enter a bidding war for BEA, and that its strategy is still to grow its two core businesses -- applications and middleware -- organically.But he wouldn&#39;t rule out further big acquisitions in areas where SAP is not already strong. &quot;We are categorically not excluding further big acquisitions,&quot; Kagermann said, according to the Financial Times.The company also continues to snap up smaller companies. SAP has bought more than a dozen vendors in the past three years, according to IDC, including five in 2005, three in 2006, and six so far in 2007, including Yasu and Business Objects. That compares to more than 30 acquisitions for Oracle, a few of which were much larger deals.