Development News
In 2007, our product development work focused on optimizing our solution portfolio. Working with our customers and partners, we developed numerous innovations and greatly extended the functional range of our software products. These efforts created rich new solutions in all four core areas of our product portfolio: enterprise applications and industry solutions; platform; software for small businesses and midsize companies; and offerings for business users. We also acquired companies and business to augment our portfolio of products.
Enterprise Application and Industry Solution Offerings Expanded
We adapted the enterprise applications in SAP Business Suite and all of our industry solutions for enterprise SOA and developed the following enhancements:
- SAP ERP: In July, we announced the availability of the second enhancement package for the SAP ERP application. Next to functional enhancements, the package included specific innovations for the media, utilities, telecommunications, and retail industries. We announced the third enhancement package in December. It delivers reporting, financial, human resource management, and quality management capabilities. These enhancement packages enable customers to quickly and cost effectively take advantage of key innovations without moving to a new SAP ERP release.
- SAP CRM:
In December, we introduced a new version
of SAP CRM. SAP CRM 2007 offers new enhancements
and capabilities, such as real-time offer management,
trade promotions management, business communications
management (bringing e-mail, fax, and telephony together into one all-Internet Protocol environment),
and pipeline performance management. Its dynamic new
user interface with Web 2.0 functions gives business
users more flexibility to manage customer relationships
the way they prefer.
By acquiring Wicom Communications, a leading provider of all-Internet Protocol software solutions, and integrating the Wicom capabilities with related SAP applications, we can now offer more efficient and powerful contact center and enterprise communications functions in the SAP Business Communications Management software. - SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP PLM): We enhanced our product life-cycle management software, building the foundation for a new generation of the SAP PLM application. With SAP PLM, manufacturers can better address two dominant business trends – the accelerated speed of change and the need to achieve competitive differentiation by collaboratively innovating within their business network. Companies use SAP PLM to introduce new products more rapidly, for example, and to effectively collaborate with their business networks.
- SAP Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM): SAP SCM 2007 considerably extended our supply chain management offering, with its new applications for supply network collaboration, extended warehouse management, transportation management, and sales and operations planning. It can greatly help customers streamline, for instance, the way their marketing, production planning, sales planning, and financial budgeting work together. It can also help them optimize their trade processes, improve process transparency, drive down costs, and manage international shipping.
- SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM): In 2007, we introduced an on-demand electronic purchasing solution. Companies can use the SAP E-Sourcing on-demand solution for their sourcing and procurement processes, such as online auctions and responding to requests for proposals. We also launched an application for contract life-cycle management and a spend analytics application that enables companies to more effectively manage procurement costs and compliance. Customers can use SAP SRM to run their complete procurement process from source to pay.
- SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure: We kicked off a new round of radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging development in 2007 with our SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure offering for product tracking and authentication. Customers can use it to collect and process product data from RFID tags and they can store and manage the data in the SAP object event repository designed for that purpose. This enables them to pinpoint the exact location of any object at any time.
- SAP Manufacturing: As a result of acquiring Factory Logic in late 2006, we added the SAP Lean Planning and Operations application to our offering for manufacturing industry. It helps manufacturers adapt more effectively and more flexibly to the changing demands of their customers. In addition, as a result of our acquisition of Lighthammer, in the new version of the SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence application plant employees have better, personalized access to the information they need for decision making.
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