ERP Software

SAP to buy manufacturing bolt on

SAP has bought Visiprise, that specializes in manufacturing execution systems (MES) which as 300 employees.

This will give SAP the extra functionality needed to compete in the complex discrete manufacturing sector such as aerospace, high tech and defense industries.

"It signals SAP's commitment to manufacturing," said Simon Jacobson, senior research analyst at Boston-based AMR Research. "Now you can buy MES from your ERP provider."

Manufacturing execution software definition: A shop floor control system which includes either manual or automatic labor and production reporting as well as on-line inquiries and links to tasks that take place on the production floor. MES includes links to work orders, receipt of goods, shipping, quality control, maintenance, scheduling, and other related tasks.

http://www.visiprise.com

SAP press release

SAP postpones first release of SaaS ERP ?

 

SAP has revealed that they have delayed the launch of the much touted A1S for the SMB market ,the software is being tested by customers and now the release date will be put back to Q2?.

"It looks like building a web-native, ERP-based suite from scratch is a bit harder than SAP anticipated,”‘said Netsuite CEO Zach Nelson.

A1S which has "SOA by Design” Will allow SAP to   slash the total cost of ownership by 90% which I would love to see if they are right then the other software vendors might as well pack their bags but this does sound like a marketing statement.

A1S is part of SAP's strategy to get 100,000 customers by 2010; this service will be focused on volume and will be only offered as an online service with on premise being available at a later stage.

SAP hires SaaS Guru from RightNow

 

SAP has hired Peter Dunning  who was  the president of field operations at RightNow his new position will be executive VP of strategic industries.

I am sure he is going to have his work cut out for him trying to get SAP around the SaaS mindset but does show that the big boys even conservative SAP needs to offer a viable ERP SaaS package.

SAP SaaS new Hire

SAP SaaS ERP release for the midmarket

SAP has revealed its plans to launch a SaaS ERP SAP Version focussed on the mid market. Henning Kagermann SAP’s CEO announced earlier this week but no specific dates on release.

Netsuite CEO Zach Nelson has welcomed the announcement and mentioned that this will validate on demand within the ERP space. "Larry Ellison once told me that the best thing that happened to Oracle in the early days was IBM’s preannouncement of a relational database years before it was available. It gave credibility to the then-new idea of relational databases and created demand that IBM could not fulfil."

The thinking is SAP will use on demand as a loss leader and Netsuite is not too concerned (yeah right)and they have a eight year head start and that will give them space to keep ahead of SAP.

Oracle to buy SAP?

The rumour mill is on overdrive at the moment with Oracle putting in a bid for SAP.

The financial experts think there is not much substance to the rumour and might be done to prove to the public that Oracle is large enough to make a bid for SAP.

The timing is perfect to deflect attention away form Sap’s news on releasing a SaaS version for the mid market plus the competition authorities would not allow this deal to go through.

update

31.05.2007 :The story is doing the rounds again with SAP stock up ,the feedback is that  oracle has bought 8% of SAP.

Zdnet Link

Where there is smoke there is fire ,SAP is involved in all the rumours and is getting bad press at the moment for their future strategy.

Microsoft SAP Duet

Duet allows users to access data and processes from SAP's back-office applications through Microsoft's desktop Office software suite.

As part of their collaboration, Microsoft and SAP will regularly release additional integration capabilities, dubbed "business scenarios," with each release aimed at a specific function of a company's operations.

One of the several value packs planned for the next year will feature three business scenarios connecting Microsoft Office and mySAP Business Suite applications.

The business scenarios are:

Travel Management: which is designed to simplify travel planning and expense approval via Microsoft Outlook;

Sales Management:for accessing customer contact and sales-based analytics , easy scheduling of customer activities.

Demand Planning: simplify supply chain demand planning via Microsoft Excel.

SAP's 'Duet' with Microsoft also promises to tie NetWeaver BI and analytic data to the Microsoft Office desktop.

SAP Microsoft Duet

Tags: duet, sap, microsoft

SAP profit warning

SAP has declined to comment on rumours of a profit warning; German law states today would be the last day for SAP to issue any second quarter profit warning.

Forbes SAP ERP Info

SAP Discovery System for Enterprise SOA

For all you SAP developers out there ,SAP has released a sandbox for you to play in called SAP Discovery System for Enterprise SOA.

You need to speak to your SAP vendor for details but you do need to deal Hewlett-Packard they are offering a the package preinstalled on an HP ProLiant DL380

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/3860 cost you $8999.00 or there is some leasing deal.

SAP Discovery System for Enterprise SOA offers

SAP Enterprise Core Component (ECC 5.0) configured with the SAP Best Practices tool suite

SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer

SAP NetWeaver '04 SP 14:

SAP NetWeaver Portal

SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management (MDM)

SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure (XI)

SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI)

SAP NetWeaver Application Server

Cadbury's implementation pains

Cadbury has taken a £12m hit on its profits after IT problems caused too many chocolate bars to be produced.

Cadburys was left with warehouses full of chocolate bars at the start of the year, after the rollout of a new SAP-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system led to an excess of chocolate bars building up at the end of 2005.

The new SAP ERP system is part of project called Probe ,Cadbury is hoping for £500m efficiency savings.

Cadburys is offering a unique experiment to increase their employee’s pay packet offering a month’s salary and a hundred thousand chocolate bars free to choose to what brand they want, have to get rid of the chocolate some how.

SAP merger ?

Henning Kagermann, SAP’s chief executive, has changed SAP's tone to a possible merger  “There is no intention for SAP to enter any discussions,”  this has contradicted what Hasso Plattner (SAP founder)did say that Microsoft, IBM and Google were the only companies that could feasibly buy the group.

Maybe SAP needs to write a application for board communication strategy?