SAP has launched NetWeaver, the next generation of its mySAP
platform, which promises to allow companies to integrate people,
information and business processes across multiple technologies and
organisations.
Netweaver, which is shipping now, is fully interoperable with
Microsoft's .net architecture and IBM 's WebSphere systems.
Josh Greenbaum, a principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting
welcomed a product that will run on both Microsoft's .net and Sun
Microsystems's J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition).
"It's hugely important that SAP continues to acknowledge the
heterogeneity in the market and not force its customers to make
infrastructure decisions."
Enterprise IT infrastructure is, increasingly, made up of commodity
products. "Commodity functionality should not be forced on the
customer," Greenbaum said.
NteWeaver will be the platform for SAP's e-business applications,
its cross-applications (xApps), and its enterprise resource
planning applications. It is also the blueprint for the way the
software giant plans to deliver Web services to enterprises.
It will feature SAP's existing application server, portal
technology, business warehouse and exchange infrastructure, plus
new Master Data Management functionality and a new composite
applications framework, said Peter Graf, SAP's vice-president of
marketing strategy.
"The Enterprise Services Architecture is our commitment to use Web
services as a fundamental technology to all the solutions we bring
to the market," Graf said.
"NetWeaver describes the complete landscape that you need to drive
a specific business process. It's an architecture that allows
companies to leverage investments they have made in the past. We're
deploying that concept of being able to add functionality without
touching a specific system, and deploy it across SAP."
SAP will offer a portal development kit for WebSphere as well as
integrating with IBM's content manager. The company will also offer
a portal development kit for .net, while supporting integration
with Microsoft's Visual Studio .net and its SQL Server and
BizTalk.
"We need to be able to support the platforms just like we support
different databases," Graf said. "If you only have one silo, you
have a very hard time understanding and defining cross-functional
business processes."
SAP's move further validates the shift of enterprise IT spending
from core business operational processes to processes at the edge
of the enterprise, such as those for linking with customers and
suppliers, said Jon Derome, an analyst with the Yankee Group.
"At the edge of the enterprise customisation costs are high,
integration costs are high, and you're typically dealing with
custom processes. To meet those needs and keep customisation and
integration costs down, you can take advantage of Java and XML
technology."
The support for both .net and J2EE could reduce the cost of
ownership for SAP applications.