ERP Software optimizes business functionality.

Press Release Summary:



Service-enabled mySAP(TM) ERP 2005 connects all operations through intelligent foundation of cross-functional business processes, combining software applications with underlying infrastructure for flexibility and fluid communications with customers and suppliers. Along with embedded industry-specific functionality, it enables users to leverage 300 available enterprise services and provides companies with role-based, intuitive work centers.



Original Press Release:



SAP Delivers Next Evolution of Flagship ERP; Provides Users with More Choice and Enhanced Usability



Ground-Breaking ERP Application Provides Wealth of New Business Functionality to Broad Segment of Customers; Will Offer Alternative SAP GUI for Simplified User Interaction

ORLANDO, Fla., May 17 -- SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) today announced the global availability of mySAP(TM) ERP 2005, the latest version of its renowned enterprise resource planning application. The new version of mySAP ERP features more than 300 product enhancements to provide companies with better information access and decision support, including role-based, intuitive work centers that enable users with a single click-to-action. The service-enablement of mySAP(TM) ERP 2005 provides greater openness and agility to extend process capabilities with applications from SAP or its family of ecosystem partners. Industry-specific functionality is now also fully embedded in the core ERP application, and customers who have licensed SAP industry solution portfolios delivered with mySAP ERP will benefit from more timely availability of industry-specific capabilities, as well as simplified configuration and administration. In addition, SAP demoed an early version of a new, modernized user interface called "Project Muse." The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE(R) '06, SAP's international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Flexible Platform with Greater Value

The latest version of mySAP ERP is a milestone release with advanced capabilities that deliver greater value to new and existing customers and provide a cost-effective, low risk and evolutionary path to the industry's first service-enabled suite of enterprise applications. The new version of mySAP ERP enables customers to leverage its 300 available enterprise services, comprising the majority of the more than 500 productized enterprise services from mySAP(TM) Business Suite. SAP is service-enabling mySAP ERP to help customers innovate and adapt to changing industry requirements with greater speed and at lower cost than ever before. The widespread availability of the latest mySAP ERP application, built upon the SAP NetWeaver platform, provides a further realization of the SAP road map for enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), marking the first application that connects all operations through an intelligent foundation of cross-functional business processes, combining software applications with the underlying infrastructure for greater flexibility and fluid communications with customers and suppliers.

"For enterprises to respond to competitive challenges, they must be able to implement business changes on an ongoing basis, providing insight in an intuitive manner to its knowledge workers," said Henry Morris, group vice president, IDC. "With its release of mySAP ERP 2005, SAP responds to these requirements with more extensive verticalization, better access to information and tangible progress towards its stated goal of adaptable, service-oriented software applications."

New Options to Drive Information Worker Productivity

To support all ways that people work, SAP demonstrated an early version of a new SAP GUI, called "Project Muse," that will provide a powerful new option for customers, and is one key element of SAP's effort to simplify the usage of SAP software while opening up its business processes to become ubiquitous and used through a variety of user experiences. This rich new user interface option delivers a simple, intuitive and highly interactive user experience, allowing users to access an SAP application directly from their Mac(R), Linux or Windows(R) desktop and from integrated mobile devices and combines the benefits of a browser system (easy distribution of the SAP GUI over the Web) with benefits of rich clients (optimized network traffic and user interaction). SAP aims to make the new SAP GUI available to customers running mySAP Business Suite applications, delivering it with mySAP ERP 2005 in waves through a series of enhancement packages.

As announced on May 2, 2006, SAP and Microsoft have also delivered Duet(TM) software, a thought-leading software application that integrates the business processes and enterprise information driven by mySAP ERP with the Microsoft Office System. By leveraging the business environment of Microsoft Office, employees realize a seamless experience between Microsoft and mySAP ERP applications. Along with self-service capabilities, pre-configured, role-based work centers and SAP(R) xApps(TM) composite applications for analytics provided with mySAP ERP 2005, SAP's innovative approach allows business users to connect to SAP applications in unprecedented ways-and through the user interface that is most well-suited to their unique requirements.

Rapid Customer Adoption of mySAP ERP

SAP dedicated significant effort in the creation of mySAP ERP 2005 to the simplification and acceleration of ERP upgrades at customer sites. Upgrades from SAP(R) R/3(R) to mySAP ERP have been completed at unprecedented speed while customers start using mySAP ERP 2005 as the key milestone as part of their own ESA road maps.

"Orange County Public Schools hires more than 2,000 employees each year and needed a solution that would change the way we do business, improving how the administration recruits talented teachers and hires qualified staff," said Charles Thompson, chief information officer, Orange County Public Schools. "As an existing SAP customer, Orange County turned to the latest version of mySAP ERP because its e-recruiting capabilities will help automate steps in the recruiting process, giving the school district visibility into candidates and allowing hiring managers to post job descriptions."

"The move to mySAP ERP provides us with a strong foundation for excellence in our core business functions and supports our overall growth strategy as we continue to expand internationally," said Guillaume Bruyneel CIO at Dexxon Group Holding. "We completed our ERP migration on time and budget, and are now up and running with robust applications and technology that help improve our financial supply chain processes, enhance visibility for our managers and streamline sales and contract flow with our customers. The new architecture of mySAP ERP allows us to collaborate more effectively and operate more flexibly at a lower overall cost."

Enhanced Functionality Strengthens the Core

SAP has made many functional enhancements to its market-leading ERP software, including:

Enhanced financial management, analysis and reporting capabilities:

-- A newly architected general ledger solution that lessens manual reconciliations and improves the ability to balance ledgers by multiple dimensions

-- Improved management dashboards that provide a complete picture of business operations and improve decision-making among managers and line-of-business users

-- New collections and credit management capabilities to accelerate cash collections and improve day sales outstanding metrics

Enhanced human capital management capabilities:

-- End-to-end talent management tools to improve recruiting, training, performance evaluation and retention of employees

-- Improved employee self-service capabilities to reduce administrative overhead of human resources (HR) departments

-- Improved employee expense and travel reporting to reduce the time and improve control over employee expense reimbursements

Enhanced support for new business models and operations:

-- Improved architecture to support outsourcing for payroll and cash management

-- New ability to support electronic procurement, invoicing, sales order management and documentation of internal controls for the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act

-- Enhanced enterprise services repository for system and instance consolidation and shared-service management

Serving a broad business user community

-- Empowered users through enhanced capabilities to connect people directly to processes leveraging the specific role-based user interface

-- Improved business insight through expanded SAP xApps for analytics

Trusted Platform for Excellence and Innovation

"mySAP ERP provides new and existing SAP customers with a rock-solid business foundation for future success, allowing companies to achieve and sustain excellence in core operational areas," said Shai Agassi, president of the Product and Technology Group and executive board member, SAP. "This new release delivers on the promise of enterprise SOA: the high levels of flexibility and adaptability needed to innovate and address today's business challenges, and the capabilities end users require to do their jobs effectively and efficiently."

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software*. Today, more than 33,200 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP(R) applications-from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize enterprises to suite offerings for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(R) platform to drive innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at www.sap.com/ .)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.

NOTE: SAP, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

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