ORLANDO, Fla. – While its stated primary focus is on assuring customer satisfaction in this tough economic climate, software maker SAP AG did manage to release a bevy of new products at its Sapphire 2002 user conference here this week.
Rounding out last Novembers TechEd announcement of the mySAP Technology platform, SAP said yesterday it completed delivery of the software.
MySAP Technology is an open standards platform that brings together SAPs combined Java and ABAP Web application server with integration and portal technology. The platforms Exchange Infrastructure, which acts as an integration layer, uses XML messaging for process integration to connect components. At this weeks conference, SAP officials talked about a single repository of information that will be used to unify business processes.
The vision is to populate the repository with information from disparate applications – be they SAP or another vendor. Initially, however, the repository will utilize SAP information only.
SAP, of Walldorf, Germany, announced a relationship with integration software maker webMethods Inc. yesterday that will be a key facet in the single repository, providing adapters to non-SAP applications.
In his keynote speech before a sizable audience, CEO Hasso Plattner announced that SAP would change every one of its user interfaces over the next several years. To do this, SAP has incorporated what it is calling its Web Dynpro technology into its Web Application Server.
SAP has long used Dynpro as a presentation layer to its user interfaces. Now theyve combined Dynpro with the Web app server for a design time environment that allows developers to model and create browser-based user interfaces. At the same time, a standards-based run-time environment bridges the gap between J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition), ABAP and Microsoft .Net.
For Jay Wilson, CIO at Cavalier Homes Inc., this is good news. With a straight Microsoft and SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning environment, the combined Web Dynpro and Web app server will make his life a lot easier.
“When we deliver a user interface now we have to do that to the client machine,” said Wilson, who is based in Greensboro, N.C. “With the portals, there is no delivery to the client. Plus, it looks a lot better. The way they will deliver (the new UIs) is through a central delivery. With R/3 4OB, there is physically more code to all computers on the network. That goes away [with the new interfaces].”
SAP also announced upgrades to its portal offering on the supply chain management front. The enhancements allow customers a more complete view of their supply chain.
The enhancements to mySAP Supply Chain Management leverage the mySAP portal offering along with event management, performance management, partner content network and hosting capabilities. The net result is a consolidated view of inventory, events, plans, schedules and performance indicators, according to officials.