At its North American user conference next week in Philadelphia, SAP AG will unveil an Accelerated SAP (ASAP) program to make it easier for users to deploy and integrate R/3 business applications, according to analyst Morgan Stanley & Co. SAP has long been criticized for the time-consuming process of implementing R/3 in which users have had to rely heavily on outside consultants. ASAP is supposed to provide a structured methodology to allow users to bring more R/3 implementation in-house. Morgan Stanley says ASAP is running in two beta customer sites. SAP is also expected to reveal a data warehousing initiative. There are few details but SAP and Oracle Corp are expected to unveil a set of tools to put R/3 data into data warehouses. SAP’s recent buddy-buddy relationship with Microsoft Corp will be demonstrated in SAP’s anticipated support for Microsoft Exchange. That initiative puts SAP on a more even playing field with competitors like Baan International BV, which supports Microsoft BackOffice, but not Exchange; and with PeopleSoft Inc, which supports Microsoft SQLServer but not BackOffice or Exchange. Sapphire will also offer conference-goers a sneak peak at R/3 version 4.0, according to Morgan Stanley. SAP shipped R/3 3.1 two months ago and 4.0 won’t appear until the second half of 1997, which is touted as its component approach to R/3, enabling users to upgrade by implementing component modules rather than full releases. SAP is also expected to reveal an Internet strategy using technology and services from OneWave Inc and detail plans for an Internet supply chain management tool.
