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</ref> by five former [[IBM]] engineers in [[Mannheim]], [[Baden-Württemberg]] ([[Dietmar Hopp]], Hans-Werner Hector, [[Hasso Plattner]], Sayeed khan and Claus Wellenreuther).<ref name="saphistory">
</ref> by five former [[IBM]] engineers in [[Mannheim]], [[Baden-Württemberg]] ([[Dietmar Hopp]], Hans-Werner Hector, [[Hasso Plattner]], [[Klaus Tschira]] and Claus Wellenreuther).<ref name="saphistory">
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Revision as of 10:09, 28 January 2011

SAP AG
Company typeAktiengesellschaft
ISIN: DE0007164600
FWB: SAP
NYSE: SAP
ISINDE0007164600 Edit this on Wikidata
IndustryComputer software
FoundedWeinheim, Germany (1972)
FounderDietmar Hopp
Hans-Werner Hector
Hasso Plattner
Klaus E. Tschira
Claus Wellenreuther
Headquarters
Walldorf
,
Germany
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Bill McDermott (Co-CEO, Global Field Operations)
Jim Hagemann Snabe (Co-CEO, Business Solutions & Technology)
Gerhard Oswald (COO)
Werner Brandt (Finance & Administration)
Hasso Plattner (Chairman of the supervisory board)
ProductsSAP Business Suite
SAP ERP
SAP CRM
SAP SCM
SAP SRM
SAP PLM
SAP NetWeaver
SAP Sybase ASE
SAP Business One
SAP Business ByDesign
SAP Business All-in-One
SAP Business Objects portfolio
List of SAP products
RevenueDecrease €10.671 billion (2009)[1]
Decrease €2.640 billion (2009)[1]
Decrease €1.787 billion (2009)[1]
Total assetsDecrease €13.863 billion (2009)[1]
Total equityIncrease €8.574 billion (2009)[1]
Number of employees
47,578 in over 50 countries (December 31, 2009)[1]
WebsiteSAP.com

SAP AG (ISIN: DE0007164600, FWB: SAP, NYSE: SAP) is a German software corporation that provides enterprise software applications and support to businesses of all sizes globally. Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the largest enterprise software company in the world (as of 2009).[2] It is also the largest software company in Europe and the fourth largest globally.[3] The company's best known products are its SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP ERP) and SAP BusinessObjects software.

History

SAP was founded in June 1972 as [Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("System Analysis and Program Development")[4] by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira and Claus Wellenreuther).[4]

As part of the Xerox exit strategy from the computer industry, Xerox retained IBM to migrate their business systems to IBM technology. As part of IBM's compensation for the migration, IBM acquired the SDS/SAPE software, reportedly for a contract credit of $80,000. The SAPE software was given by IBM to the founding ex-IBM employees in exchange for founding stock provided to IBM, reportedly 8%. Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was SAP's first ever customer in 1972.[5]

The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing").

In 1976, "SAP GmbH" founded, and moved its headquarters the following year to Walldorf. SAP AG became the company's official name after the 2005 annual general meeting. AG is short for Aktiengesellschaft (corporation).

In August 1988, SAP GmbH transferred into SAP AG (a corporation by German law), and public trading started November 4. Shares are listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges.[4]

In 1995, SAP was included in the German stock index DAX. On 22 September 2003, SAP was included in the Dow Jones STOXX 50.[6] In 1991, Prof. Dr. Henning Kagermann joined the board; Dr. Peter Zencke became a board member in 1993.[7] Claus Heinrich,[8] and Gerhard Oswald [9] have been members of the SAP Executive Board since 1996. Two years later, in 1998, the first change at the helm took place. Dietmar Hopp and Klaus Tschira moved to the supervisory board and Dietmar Hopp was appointed Chairman of the supervisory board. Henning Kagermann was appointed as Co-Chairman and CEO of SAP next to Hasso Plattner. Werner Brandt joined SAP in 2001 as a member of the SAP Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer.[10] Léo Apotheker was a member of the SAP Executive Board and president of Global Customer Solutions & Operations from 2002, and was appointed Deputy CEO in 2007. Apotheker became co-CEO alongside Kagermann in 2008.

Henning Kagermann became the sole CEO of SAP in 2003.[11] In February 2007, his contract was extended until 2009. After continuous disputes over the responsibility of the development organization, Shai Agassi, a member of the executive board who had been named as a potential successor to Kagermann, left the organization.[12] In April 2008, along with the announcement of Apotheker as co-CEO, the SAP supervisory board also appointed three new members to the SAP Executive Board, effective 1 July 2008: Corporate Officers Erwin Gunst, Bill McDermott, and Jim Hagemann Snabe.[13] With the retirement of Kagermann in May 2009, Apotheker took over as the sole CEO. He was replaced by new co-CEOs Bill McDermott, head of field organization, and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development, effective February 7,


In November, 2010, SAP lost a $1.3 billion intellectual property law suit (related to the actions of the SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow) to Oracle Corporation - cited as the largest software piracy judgment in history.[14]

Milestones in technical solutions

In 1973, the SAP R/1 solution was launched.[15] Six years later, in 1979, SAP launched SAP R/2.[15] In 1981, SAP brought a completely re-designed solution to market. However, SAP didn't significantly improve until the period between 1985 and 1990. The most major improvements came not from the founders or employees, but from a partnership with an educational institution, "Chico State".

In 1985, four years after SAP R/2 emerged, SAP had big plans, but few resources to improve upon their ERP. At the same time, nearly 9000 km (5600Mi) away, at California State University at Chico (CSUC) ("Chico State") a graduate student in the precursor of the College of Business at Chico State informed a couple of senior professors about SAP, and wondered if they might ask SAP for an evaluation copy to use in the database management or production management classes. Chico State professors contacted SAP, and soon the conversation went from "evaluation" to "development". Both sides agreed to become partners.

Chico State remained SAP's only educational partner for the first few years, vastly improving and extending modules within R/2, which led to the development of R/3 with a few new modules. SAP and Chico State developed and released several versions of R/3 in 1992 through 1995. By the mid 1990's, SAP followed the trend from mainframe computing to client-server architectures. The development of SAP’s internet strategy with mySAP.com redesigned the concept of business processes (integration via Internet).[4] SAP was awarded Industry Week’s Best Managed Companies in 1999.[16] By 1997, SAP had partnered with over 25 educational institutes, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Business and markets

SAP AG Headquarters, Walldorf.

SAP is the world's largest business software company and the third-highest revenue independent software provider (as of 2007).[17] It operates in four geographic regions: EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), AMERICA (United States and Canada), LAC (Latin America and Caribbean), and APJ (Asia Pacific and Japan), which represents Japan, Australia, India, and parts of Asia. In addition, SAP operates a network of 115 subsidiaries, and has R&D (Research & Development) facilities around the globe in Germany, India, the US, Canada, France, Brazil, Turkey, China, Hungary, Israel, Ireland and Bulgaria.

SAP focuses on six industry sectors: process industries, discrete industries, consumer industries, service industries, financial services, and public services.[18] It offers more than 25 industry solution portfolios for large enterprises[19] and more than 550 micro-vertical solutions for midsize companies and small businesses.[20]

Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture

Service-oriented architecture moves the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) landscape toward software-based and web services-based business activities. This move increases adaptability, flexibility, openness, and efficiency. The move towards E-SOA helps companies reuse software components and not rely as much on in-house ERP hardware technologies, which makes ERP adoption more attractive to small and mid-sized companies

According to a press fact sheet from SAP, "SAP is the only enterprise applications software vendor that is both building service-orientation directly into its solutions and providing a technology platform SAP NetWeaver and guidance to support companies in the development of their own service-oriented architectures spanning both SAP and non-SAP solutions." [21]

E-SOA Authentication

SAP E-SOA, client certificate-based authentication is the only authentication method (besides username/password) and the only Single Sign-On method to be supported across all SAP technologies. Kerberos and logon tickets, for example, are not compatible with SAP service-oriented architecture.[22]

Products

SAP's products focus on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). The company's main product is SAP ECC. The current version is SAP ECC 6.0 and is part of the SAP Business Suite. Its previous name was R/3. The "R" of SAP R/3 stood for realtime - even though it is not a realtime solution. The number 3 related to the 3-tier architecture: database, application server and client (SAPgui). R/2, which ran on a Mainframe architecture, was the predecessor of R/3. Before R/2 came System RF, later dubbed R/1.

SAP ECC is one of five enterprise applications in SAP's Business Suite. The other four applications are:

Other major product offerings include: the NetWeaver platform, Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) solutions, Duet (joint offering with Microsoft), Performance Management solutions and RFID. SAP offers SOA capabilities (calling it Enterprise SOA) in the form of web services that are wrapped around its applications.

While its original products were typically used by Fortune 500 companies[citation needed], SAP now actively targets small and medium sized enterprises (SME) with its SAP Business One and SAP Business All-in-One.
On 19 September 2007 SAP announced a new product named SAP Business ByDesign. SAP Business ByDesign is a software as a service (SaaS) offering, and provides a fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, On Demand. SAP Business ByDesign was previously known under the code name "A1S".[23] In October 2007, SAP AG announced the friendly takeover of Business Objects. This acquisition expanded SAP's Product Suite of Business Intelligence (BI) solutions and increased the customer installed base to 89,000.[24]

In February 2009 SAP AG, which invested in Coghead, purchased the start-up’s intellectual property. SAP will only be using the company’s technology as an internal resource and has no plans to offer Coghead’s products to its customers. [25]

In May 2010 SAP AG announced that it is buying the database software maker Sybase for US$ 5.8 billion in cash.[26] The deal closed at the end of July 2010. Sybase will continue to run as a separate, independent unit but will be leveraged across the other SAP areas.

As of July 2010 TechniData is a 100% subsidiary of SAP AG.[27]

SAP officials say there are over 100,600 SAP installations serving more than 41,200 companies in more than 25 industries in more than 120 countries.[28]

Partnerships

SAP partners include Global Services Partners with cross-industry multinational consulting capabilities,[29] Global Software Partners providing integrated products that complement SAP Business Suite solutions,[30] and Global Technology Partners providing user companies with a wide range of products to support SAP technology, including vendors of hardware, database, storage systems, networks, and mobile computing technology.[31]

SAP PartnerEdge

SAP solutions for small businesses and midsize companies are delivered through its global partner network. In 2008, SAP signed SAP Global Service partnership with HCL Technologies, a $4.9 b technology service provider, headquartered in India.[32] SAP PartnerEdge has also signed with Enfos Inc, a software as a service company, to develop their EcoHub Partner Sustainability Solution platform. The SAP PartnerEdge program, SAP's partner program, offers a set of business enablement resources and program benefits to help partners including value added resellers (VARs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) be profitable and successful in implementing, selling, marketing, developing and delivering SAP solutions to a broad range of customers.[33]

Gartner states that SAP PartnerEdge has "set a new standard for innovation in channel development for the small and midsize business application market."[citation needed]

Communities

SAP Developer Network (SDN) is a community of developers, consultants, integrators, and business analysts gaining and sharing knowledge about ABAP, Java, .NET, SOA, and other technologies via expert blogs, discussion forums, exclusive downloads and code samples, training materials, and a technical library.[34] The Business Process Expert (BPX) Community is a collaborative environment for business process experts to share information, experiences and best practices to leverage enterprise SOA to increase business agility and IT value.[35] The SAP Enterprise Services Community serves as a platform for members from customers, industry experts and partners working collaboratively to define enterprise services.[36] Industry Value Networks (IVN) bring together customers, partners and SAP to co-innovate and develop solutions to solve industry-specific customer challenges. There are currently eleven active IVNs (e.g. Banking, Chemicals, Consumer Products, High Tech, Public Sector, Retail).[37] Another important aspect of the SAP Community Network is the Career Center. By facilitating targeted recruitment, the Career Center acts as the premier yet free source of jobs and talent for SAP's partners, customers and vendors.

Organization

Functional units of SAP are split across different organizational units for R&D needs, field activities and customer support. SAP Labs are mainly responsible for product development where as the field organizations spread across each country are responsible for field activities such Sales, Marketing, Consulting etc. Head office located in SAP AG is responsible for overall management as well as core Engineering activities related to Product Development. SAP customer support, also called Active Global Support (AGS) is a global organization to provide support to SAP customers worldwide.

[38]===SAP Labs locations===

File:Saplabsbrazilpic2.jpg
SAP Labs Latin America
File:Saplabsbrazilpic1.jpg
Ernie Gunst and Erwin Rezelman at SAP Labs Latin America

SAP Labs is the research and development organization of the parent company. SAP has its development organization spread across the globe. As of Jan, 2011, but not all, labs locations host SAP Research groups. SAP's website has more information on the research focus of SAP - http://www.sap.com/about/company/research/centers/index.epx

Prominent labs are located in Europe (SAP Lab - Bulgaria); São Leopoldo, Brazil; Palo Alto, USA; Bangalore,and Gurgaon India; Ra'anana and Karmiel, Israel; Montreal and Vancouver, Canada and Shanghai, China. SAP Labs India [1] is the largest development unit in terms of number of employees outside the SAP headquarters located in Walldorf, Germany. Other SAP Labs locations include France, Bulgaria and Hungary.

Each SAP Lab has prominent area of expertise and focus. SAP Labs in Sofia, Bulgaria for example specializes in development of Java based SAP software products. Whereas, SAP Labs in U.S. is famous for its focus on innovation and research.

SAP opened in June, 2009 its new SAP Labs campus in Brazil, representing the first SAP Labs Center in Latin America and the eighth worldwide. The facility is located in São Leopoldo, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and employs 375 people. Of particular note are the building’s structure and interior, which are composed entirely of environmentally friendly materials. Since these materials were not available in Brazil, constructing the facility did not come cheap for SAP. However, Erwin Rezelman – director of SAP Labs Latin America – emphasizes that the project was an effort not only to create a "green house" in Latin America, but also to design offices with a pleasant work atmosphere.

SAP Labs Latin America has just received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification for the building.

User groups

User Groups are independent, not-for-profit organizations of SAP customer companies and partners within the SAP Ecosystem that provide education to their members, influence SAP product releases and direction, exchange best practices, and provide insight into the market needs. Examples of User Groups are the Americas' SAP Users' Group (ASUG),[39] the German speaking SAP User Group (DSAG),[40] the SAP Australian User Group (SAUG)[41] and the SAP UK & Ireland User Group.[42][43] Further SAP User Groups can be found at the List of SAP Users' Groups.

In 2007, the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN) has been established to foster the information exchange and best practice sharing among SAP User Groups and to coordinate the collaboration with SAP for strategic topics.[44]

Conferences

SAPPHIRE is SAP's premiere customer-facing event. It is generally where SAP has announced major product changes and strategic direction. It is typically held annually in the spring, in both North American and Europe. SAP TechEd is also offered, normally in the fall, targeting SAP's ecosystem of consultants and software development partners.

SAP online training and elearning

SAP has produced thousand of online training courses and ebooks to support their solutions. Many of these elearning objects are available from Learning on Demand by SAP, an SAP portal designed to make this content available to all relevant individuals.

Competitive landscape

SAP competitors are primarily in the Enterprise Resource Planning Software industry. SAP also competes in the Customer Relationship Management, Marketing & Sales Software, Manufacturing, Warehousing & Industrial Software, and Supply Chain Management & Logistics Software sectors.[45]

Oracle Corporation, SAP's major competitor, filed a case against SAP for malpractice and unfair competition in the California courts on 22 March 2007. The complaint alleged that a Texas subsidiary, SAP TN (formerly TomorrowNow before being purchased by SAP), which provides discount support for legacy Oracle product lines, used the accounts of former Oracle customers to systematically download patches and support documents from Oracle's website and appropriate them for SAP's use.[46][47] Later SAP admitted wrong-doing on smaller scale than Oracle claimed in the lawsuit. SAP has admitted to inappropriate downloads; however the company denies the theft of any intellectual property.[48]

SAP claims to grow organically in contrast to its main rival, Oracle, which has spent close to US$40B during 2004-2010 acquiring many competitors. SAP was able to increase its annual profits by 370% since 2002.[49]

In something of a departure from its usual organic growth, SAP announced in October 2007 that it would acquire Business Objects, a market leader in business intelligence software, for $6.8B.[50]

SAP provoked controversy and frustration among its users in 2008 by raising the cost of its maintenance contracts. The issue was the subject of intense discussion among user groups.[51]

The resulting pressure saw SAP and SUGEN (SAP User Group Executive Network) agree to a major benchmarking exercise to prove the value of the new support pricing policy to customers. In December 2009, SAP delayed its Enterprise Support price rises until agreement had been reached on the benchmarks and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).[52]

In January 2010 SAP did a U-turn on Enterprise Support and reintroduced its standard support package for customers, saying the move was “a demonstration of its commitment to customer satisfaction”. The move to reinstate standard support – at 18 percent of annual license fees, “will enable all customers to choose the option that best meets their requirements,” the company said.[53] SAP has also announced that it is freezing prices for existing SAP Enterprise Support contracts at 2009 levels.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f SAP Investor Relations (2009-09-01). "Annual Report 2009, Financial Highlights". SAP.com. SAP AG. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
  2. ^ http://www.softwaretop100.org/enterprise-top-10
  3. ^ http://www.softwaretop100.org/detailed2009.php?id=4
  4. ^ a b c d SAP.com. "SAP - The History of SAP (1972 - 1981)". Retrieved 2010-10-10. Cite error: The named reference "saphistory" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ http://www.sap.com/uk/about/success/casestudies/ici.epx
  6. ^ "STOXX Limited Announces Changes to its Blue-Chip Index Series" (PDF) (Press release). Stoxx. 2003-09-01. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  7. ^ Hasso Plattner, August-Wilhelm Scheer, Siegfried Wendt and Daniel S. Morrow (2000). Dem Wandel voraus. Hasso Plattner im Gespräch (in German). Bonn: Galileo Press. ISBN 3-934358-55-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ "Executive Board: Claus E. Heinrich". SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  9. ^ "Executive Board: Gerhard Oswald". SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  10. ^ "Executive Board: Werner Brandt". SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  11. ^ Wharton School (4 October 2006). "Henning Kagermann: Balancing Change and Stability in the Evolution of SAP's Enterprise Software Platform". Knowledge@Wharton. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  12. ^ Moad, Jeff (March 28, 2007). "Shai Agassi Leaves SAP". MA News. Thomas Publishing Company. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  13. ^ Mary Hayes Weier (2008-04-02). "SAP Promotes Leo Apotheker To Co-CEO". Information Week.
  14. ^ http://www.techworld.com.au/article/369233/sap_penalty_oracle_suit_excessive_analyst_says/, TechWorld
  15. ^ a b "SAP at a Glance: Press Factsheet, April 2007". SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  16. ^ Verespej, Michael A. (1999-08-16). "Why They're The Best". IndustryWeek. Penton Media, Inc. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  17. ^ Bailor, Coreen (2006-07-05). "For CRM, ERP, and SCM, SAP Leads the Way". Retrieved 2007-03-29.
  18. ^ "Business in Brief: Markets". SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  19. ^ "Midmarket Solutions: SAP ALL-IN-ONE – Solutions for mid-size companies". Annual Report 2006. SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  20. ^ "Industry Solutions: Innovation - One Industry at a Time". Annual Report 2006. SAP. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  21. ^ Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture: Press Fact Sheet, March 2007
  22. ^ "Kerberos-based SSO and SAP E-SOA".
  23. ^ Governor, James (2007-09-19). "BusinessByDesign: iPhone for ERP, Or AS/400 for 21stC?". James Governor’s Monkchips. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  24. ^ SAP press release
  25. ^ Dow Jones VentureWire. "Turning Out The Lights: Coghead" (Press release). Retrieved 2009-02-19.
  26. ^ Information Week. "SAP Buys Sybase For $5.8 Billion" (Press release). Retrieved 2010-05-13.
  27. ^ TechniData. "TechniData Company website "About us" Section" (Press release).
  28. ^ SAP (19 July 2007). "SAP Announces Preliminary 2007 Second Quarter and Six Months Results" (Press release). MarketWatch. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
  29. ^ SAP - Global & Local Partner Directories: Global Services Partners
  30. ^ SAP - Global & Local Partner Directories: Global Software Partners
  31. ^ SAP - Global & Local Partner Directories: Global Technology Partners
  32. ^ SAP - HCL Technologies Announces Global Services Partnership With SAP to Deliver Joint Business Value Through ‘Customer Centric Ecosystem’
  33. ^ SAP - SAP Solutions for Small Businesses and Midsize Companies: Press Fact Sheet, July 2007
  34. ^ SAP - Communities
  35. ^ Business Process Expert Community Home
  36. ^ SAP - SAP Communities of Innovation: Enterprise Services Community
  37. ^ SAP - SAP Communities of Innovation: Industry Value Network
  38. ^ http://www.sap.com/about/company/saplabs/index.epx
  39. ^ "ASUG".
  40. ^ "DSAG".
  41. ^ "SAUG".
  42. ^ "SAP UK &Ireland User Group".
  43. ^ "SAP User Groups".
  44. ^ "SAP User Group Executive Network".
  45. ^ Hoover's. "SAP Competitors".
  46. ^ "Oracle Sues SAP" (Press release). Oracle. 2007-03-22. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
  47. ^ "Oracle Sues SAP". oracle.com. Oracle. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
  48. ^ SAP admits 'inappropriate' Oracle downloads- Times Online
  49. ^ Konzerne: Einzug ins globale Dorf - Wirtschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
  50. ^ "SAP to buy Business Objects for $6.8B". The Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  51. ^ SAP faces user wrath over price hikes
  52. ^ SAP delays Enterprise Support price rises
  53. ^ SAP does U-turn on Enterprise Support
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