MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES

As evidenced by the Frankfurt Airport’s PDA-carrying technicians, the business world is becoming increasingly mobile. From the field to the factory, companies rely on wireless systems to manage key processes. Working closely with leading mobile technology hardware and software providers, SAP is at the forefront of ensuring that these technologies fit into our customers’ most important business processes.

For example, SAP is currently developing “multimodality” solutions that allow users to select among a variety of information-input methods, including keypad, stylus, voice, cameras, barcode scanners, and radio frequency identification (RFID) scanners. Applications for multimodality solutions include retail store operations, manufacturing, healthcare, customer relationship management, sales force automation, and enterprise portals.

SAP LIVECACHE: A NEXT-GENERATION DATABASE

Databases have long served as the storehouses for virtually all types of information, keeping it organized, categorized, and accessible to a variety of business software processes. But with the volume of data growing exponentially, conventional databases have simply become too slow and cumbersome to keep up with the requirements of today’s complex business processes. So SAP has developed a new hybrid database solution known as SAP liveCache.

SAP liveCache combines the capacity of traditional “relational” databases with the speed of today’s “cache” technologies, which keep data in a more dynamic, readily accessible form. As a result, business applications can spend less time searching for data and more time processing it.

Like the new hybrid cars that switch between gasoline and battery power based on driving conditions, SAP liveCache adjusts to changing needs, switching between processing methods based on the volume of data to be processed.

SAP liveCache is already the database management system for SAP Advanced Planner & Optimizer (SAP APO), the planning solution within mySAP Supply Chain Management. There, it helps process information from a variety of SAP and third-party systems, much more quickly than a conventional database. And based on its strong reception from customers, SAP liveCache can be expected to appear in other high-capacity applications in the near future.