[Am-info] SAP Suits Up To Battle Microsoft

[Fred A. Miller]

SAP Suits Up To Battle Microsoft

Looking over its shoulder for Microsoft, SAP on Wednesday said it
will roll out its suite of business applications for small and
midsize companies later this year. The German software company
said Business One would be available in Germany in the third
quarter and in the United States in the fourth. The new
applications are built on technology acquired earlier this year
when SAP bought Israeli company TopManage Financial Solutions.

Even though Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of
Microsoft, has said he doesn't plan to take his company into
SAP's enterprise-applications market, SAP executives at Sapphire
'02 in Orlando, Fla., appeared suspicious. "The thing that
impressed me today was the amount of chatter that SAP has been
making about Microsoft in their space," says Byron Miller, an
analyst for Giga Information Group. "I expect to see that heat
up."

During the last 18 months, Microsoft has spent $2.4 billion to
buy Great Plains Software and Navision, which make enterprise
resource planning and customer-relationship management software
for the SMB market. Microsoft is unlikely to sell its business
applications to global SAP customers looking for business
applications for small divisions. However, the two will certainly
battle for new SMB customers, a market in which
enterprise-focused SAP has a disadvantage. "In my opinion, SAP
has its work cut out to establish share in this market," Giga
analyst Paul Hamerman says. SAP Business One applications focus
on accounting, logistics, sales-force automation, and business
reporting in 11 vertical industries. - Antone Gonsalves

For the full story, see:
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eHZj0Bce7K0V20BdrA0AW

And for more, read:
To The Middle
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eHZj0Bce7K0V20BdLG0Ay

-- 
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
fm@cupserv.org, www.cupserv.org
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