[January 17, 2003]

SAP Announces Integration And Application Platform, SAP NetWeaver

SAP AG announced the launch of the next evolutionary step of its integration and application platform designed to provide extensibility across heterogeneous IT landscapes. SAP NetWeaver enables organizations to integrate people, information, and business processes across technologies and organizations. Additionally, SAP takes the technology high ground by designing SAP NetWeaver to be fully interoperable with Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere (J2EE), providing customers with flexibility to manage heterogeneous infrastructures, minimizing complexity, and reducing total cost of ownership.

SAP NetWeaver is the business-ready, services-oriented platform for all SAP solutions and the way SAP delivers on the new Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), an enterprise applications blueprint, introduced at a company event held today (see related press release). SAP was one of the first companies to deliver a technology platform to enable collaborative business when it introduced mySAP? Technology in 2001. The advanced iteration of SAP's proven technology stack, SAP NetWeaver now serves as the backbone for the SAP suite of solutions, delivering a complete, open, and flexible infrastructure that allows companies to realize additional value from existing IT investments.

"Microsoft and SAP are building on their long and successful partnership to ensure that any solution using NetWeaver can be enhanced with Microsoft .NET," said Eric Rudder, senior vice president, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft. "With full-fledged access to the NetWeaver Enterprise Services Architecture, customers can harness the productivity and power of Microsoft .NET to connect, customize and enhance solutions that improve their business agility."

"We are delighted to offer support for and be a part of the unveiling of SAP NetWeaver today," says Bruce Harreld, senior vice president of IBM strategy. "Helping our customers become on-demand businesses will require new kinds of collaboration and cooperation between the companies in the information technology industry. We look forward to building on our long-standing relationship with SAP to deliver not just technology expertise, but real business value to our customers."

SAP, IBM, and Microsoft have recently established joint collaborative technology support centers which will staff and support the companies focus on customer projects around the usage of SAP NetWeaver and it's integration with IBM WebSphere and Microsoft .Net. 

"With the constraints on IT spending, the goal is to lower costs and increase productivity," said Joshua Greenbaum, principal, Enterprise Applications Consulting, Daly City, Calif. "To do this, business managers need a flexible and comprehensive technology platform based on Web services and other standards that can drive innovation and support the integration of heterogeneous applications. SAP NetWeaver will allow customers to achieve their goals by creating and improving business processes across their IT ecosystem without changing the underlying technology foundation."

A Comprehensive Integration and Application Platform
With NetWeaver, SAP introduces two enhanced capabilities -- composite application framework and master data management -- that extend the technology stack beyond the initial capabilities of mySAP Technology. The new composite application framework built into SAP NetWeaver enables SAP and its partners to create new applications targeting cross-functional business processes through tools, frameworks, rules, and methodologies. These include, for instance, an object access layer that allows customers to abstract from the underlying heterogeneity and to create a unified development and deployment environment.

SAP NetWeaver also includes master data management (MDM) services. MDM is the first standardized offering designed to solve the widespread challenges of data integration from multiple systems, physical locations, and diverse vendors. MDM ensures information integrity across the business network by allowing companies to consolidate, harmonize, and centrally master data in heterogeneous IT environments.

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