SAP Focuses on Web Services, SOA with mySAP ERP 2005

Published: May 23, 2006

by Alex Woodie

SAP last week announced the general availability of the next version of its flagship ERP product. Dubbed mySAP ERP 2005. The new release adds new capabilities in the areas of Web services and service oriented architecture (SOA), which the company hopes will entice its legacy R/3 users to upgrade. The enterprise software giant also announced a new interface for Linux and Macintosh systems to go along with its recently announced "Duet" interface for Microsoft Office, and a plug-and-play X64-based data warehousing appliance called the Business Intelligence accelerator.

SAP hasn't exactly been a powerhouse when it comes to midmarket ERP software for the OS/400 platform, as the company's real forte has been the high-end Fortune 500 market. However, it has had a dollop of success on the OS/400 server, racking up 1,000 customers (out of 33,200 total customers) across 2,500 AS/400, iSeries, and i5 customer sites since the development relationship with IBM's midrange headquarters in Rochester began in 1994, according to Joyce Bordash, IBM's director of System i business partner and ISV sales.

iSeries shops on the hunt for a new ERP system should keep SAP in the running if for no other reason than it is--along with Oracle, Infor (which is merging with SSA Global), and Lawson Software (which just merged with Intentia)--one of the few remaining players of any scale left standing following the ERP vendor consolidation of the last few years, and whose software runs natively on OS/400 and DB2/400. It's is true that the vast majority of SAP implementations are performed on the Windows platform, but users can feel somewhat safe in the fact that iSeries practice is alive and kicking at SAP headquarters in Walldorf.

SAP is battling with these other large ERP vendors for control of user accounts, a good percentage of which are still running older editions of their enterprise applications. However, even as it pillages users from Oracle through its Safe Passage program and its third-party maintenance unit, TomorrowNow, SAP has legacy problems of its own. Most SAP customers have yet to make the jump up to the mySAP line of products, and are still running the widely successful R/3 ERP suite. SAP hopes its SOA development strategy can roust these reluctant customers out of their legacy doldrums.

Productized Enterprise Web Services

This is where the new version of mySAP ERP comes in. With this release, SAP says it has introduced the first completely "service enabled" ERP product. By this, SAP means it has taken certain specific functions, such as finance, human resources, procurement, and logistics, which it previously offered through its various mySAP Business Suite offerings, and built them down into the core ERP component of the mySAP 2005 suite. SAP plans to provide customers the capability to access up to 500 specific business processes as Web services in June, when the company ships the next release of NetWeaver and the mySAP Business Suite.

The new Web services in mySAP ERP 2005 will enable users to more quickly and easily connect with the business systems of their customers and suppliers, says Henning Kagermann, SAP's CEO. "Now customers and partners can build composite solutions on top of our service-enabled suite," he says. "Customers cannot vertically integrate all they need…..[they need to] partner with suppliers and service providers. And it has to be flexible; the switch has be seamless and done in a minute."

SAP also announced the enterprise services workplace as a way for users, developers, business partners, and even SAP employees to work together on these 500 business processes to be delivered within the 28 industry verticals supported by the mySAP Business Suite. The enterprise SOA exploration tool will be available on the SAP Developer Network at www.sdn.sap.com.

More Announcements

SAP also introduced "Project Muse," a new graphical user interface (GUI) for accessing SAP applications from Linux, Macintosh, and Windows desktops. SAP says Project Muse will provide a "rich" GUI that will enable everyday users to access their "role-based and transactional-based" applications, and which SAP indicates will split the functionality difference between a browser-based interface and full fat-client interface. It will also provide an alternative to "Duet," the recently released product that turns Microsoft Office into a user interface for SAP applications.

The announcements came fast and furious at last week's SAP user event, and the new Business Intelligence (BI) accelerator was almost lost in the mix. This new BI accelerator gives customers a pre-loaded and preconfigured business intelligence solution for performing queries against their data. SAP says BI accelerator, which it co-developed with Intel and which is available on 64-bit Xeon-based blade servers from IBM and Hewlett-Packard, is very fast, and can perform queries up to 200 times faster than competing solutions. The BI accelerator was announced last fall, and is now available.

SAP also made moves in the CRM and Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) areas. On the SRM front, the company announced the acquisition of Fricitonless Commerce, a Massachusetts developer of sourcing solutions for the banking, insurance, manufacturing, life sciences, and telecommunications industries. The company's SRM software is already certified for SAP's NetWeaver middleware, and will become a part of the mySAP Supplier Relationship Management suite when the acquisition is completed, which SAP expects to occur in July.

On the mySAP CRM front, the company announced it will evolve its hybrid software as a service (SaaS) delivery model it announced earlier this year to support the suite of CRM in a SaaS mode. SAP is also expected to begin offering mySAP ERP functions in an SaaS mode, too.

SAP also fortified its IBM relationship with the addition of a new reseller, referral, and solution relationship for mySAP All-in-One. SAP also agreed to support its software on the next release of IBM's DB2 database software, codenamed "Viper."

SAP did not respond to questions for this story by deadline. It is unknown whether mySAP ERP 2005 supports OS/400, in addition to other operating systems, at this point, or what the timeline for OS/400 support is.

IBM's Bordash says the relationship with SAP is going well. "We were very successful in gaining share within SAP's business in 2005 and have built an aggressive sales strategy jointly with SAP to enable that trend to continue," she says. " We are actively engaging in joint sales activities around the world ranging from joint campaigns to our install base as well as focused on net new customers, ecosystem initiatives to better team System i hardware partners with SAP software implementation partners, and customer briefings to help communicate the joint System i- SAP value proposition."