At SAP AG’s Sapphire user conference in Orlando, Florida next week the company will unveil its Java-enabled R/3 client destined to run on network computers and other Java-enabled desktops. It’s also going to make a big deal of the S/390 mainframe implementation of its manufacturing software which will ship on IBM Corp mainframes at the same time. Meantime IBM has updated its Lotus Connection program – an updated SmartSuite 97 for R/3 module – enabling R/3 users to analyze and distribute R/3 report data using Notes and other Lotus applications. Smooth for R/3 is IBM’s implementation of SAP’s ASAP Accelerated SAP software, a cut-down version of R/3 designed for use by small businesses. Ready to Run R/3 for up to 350 users is a new package of two AS/400s preconfigured with SAP interface clients, R/3 printer system and network management tools. IBM will be showing SAP’s Java R/3 client on its Network Stations. In the 12 months it’s been shipping, IBM claims 260 R/3 installs on AS/400 – of them 40 are supposedly production sites. The Windows NT/DB2 version of R/3 is now shipping but there are no production sites. The bulk of IBM’s R/3 revenue is still on AIX Unix. IBM claims it’s got R/3’s average install time of nine months (won’t a business have changed by the time a production environment goes live?) down to six and a half months. IBM claims 2,500 SAP accounts which accounted for 25% or $560m of SAP’s entire 1996 revenue.
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