SAP AG chairman Dietmar Hopp was indignant at suggestions that a 44% hike in profits in 1995 represented a slowdown in the company’s rate of growth. I don’t see that at all. I am confident for 1996, he told Reuters. Group revenues at the Walldorf, Germany-based business software giant were up 47% to the equivalent of $1,810m. Sales in the US were up 52% to $542.7m, but this was not enough to persuade SAP US chief executive Klaus Besier to stay aboard. He is off to Business@Web Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts company formerly known as Object Power. The company’s OpenScape tools enable companies to securely link their customers into their databases over the Internet, claimed Besier. His new firm will become a partner of SAP, with tools to access R/3 applications and Oracle databases, among others.
