If SAP wasnt serious about enterprise portals before, top brass wants to make sure everyone knows the German software giant is now.
After acquiring TopTier Software at the end of March for $400 million in cash, SAP created SAP Portals, a company that will combine the recently acquired TopTier, the mySAP Workplace and mySAP Business Intelligence divisions, as well as SAPs professional services unit.
"Our goal is to reach 100 million enterprise users," said CEO and Co-Chairman Hasso Plattner at a news conference announcing the reorganization last week.
Shai Agassi, currently the CEO for TopTier, will run the new group. "We always intended to be the market leader and revenue leader, and now we have a big stick," he said.
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To heighten its position, SAP has signed Internet powerhouse Yahoo! as an interface partner to combine SAPs applications — customer relationship management, supply chain management and Enterprise Resource Planning — with Yahoo!s general Internet portal, so all of these services can be accessed by the end user on one screen from any device anywhere in the world.
Its a strategy Yahoo! CEO and Chairman Tim Koogle is aggressively approaching. "Weve been asked by CEOs whether we can make our desktop, which they know their employees are visiting anyway, applicable to the workplace," Koogle said. "Combining that with SAPs sales channel is really the point of this."
TopTier has been a portal partner for SAP competitors, such as Baan NV, in the past. Plattner said that will not only continue, but it should be mandatory for all portal companies in the future.
