Release 3.0 of SAP AG’s R/3 system has won the battle and the war on the marketplace for increased functionality, according to SAP North America chief executive Klaus Besier. It takes us a giant step forward from Release 2.2, Besier said. Because the system’s logical capabilities have been extended, the package now supports all types of production, Besier noted. SAP also introduced PP-PI, a production planning and control system specially designed for the process industry. It can be fully integrated into other higher-level systems as well as process control systems and laboratory information systems. SAP also used CeBIT to present an integration scenario with its new Application Link Enabling concept. Application Link Enabling enables communication between separate application systems and thereby enables companies to uncouple their application systems so they may be used locally and independently, SAP says. Following what Besier said was the successful launch of R/3 on the Windows NT, the company announced that there will soon be a Microsoft Corp database available for use with R/3. The implementation of the SQL Sever 6.0 by Microsoft in SAP’s R/3 is the result of a long co-operation. Benchmark tests to measure the performance of the combination are planned for the second quarter of 1995. To date more than 260 R/3 systems have been installed on iAPX-86-based Windows NT systems since R/3 was released on Windows NT in April last year.
