SAP AG duly carpet bombed the wires with anything it could construe as news from its TechEd ’98 event in San Diego yesterday, the main focus of which was API plug-ins supporting third party applications such as Notes and Exchange that will enable them to exchange data with SAP and across-the-board support for XML. SAP has plug-ins available for Lotus Notes and Domino and Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, enabling developers to create forms executable in these groupware MAPI-enabled mail systems. There’s a plug-in for Java, which will support Java programming and component development tools. Still to come are telephony APIs enabling caller information to be automatically processed used SAPphone and delivered to the front-desk. Plug-ins for mobile devices – including palmtops – data warehousing and healthcare industries will follow. In addition, the SAP business APIs can also be utilized by developers working with Microsoft’s new Visual Studio 6 programming environment as COM objects. And users signed on to a Windows NT network can now log on to SAP applications without another password. SAP’s supporting XML for exchanging data between SAP systems and between SAP and third-party applications and will update all of its interfaces accordingly beginning in the first quarter of next year. It expects XML to be employed for invoking its BAPI interfaces, as a content format for electronic forms, as a data container for documents, workflow information and reports and as a data exchange mechanism.
