Document management and workflow software company NovaSoft Systems Inc has struck an agreement with SAP AG to integrate its NovaManage package with the SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning system. Novasoft, which opened new offices in Germany and the UK earlier this year (CI No 3,095), sees the deal as its lever into the process manufacturing and the pharmaceuticals industries. It follows a similar deal between SAP and Documentum Inc (CI No 3,116), aimed at the same market sectors. The integration will be in two phases: first – like Documentum – with SAP’s ArchiveLink applications programming interface set, which will enable SAP documents and other information to be easily archived into NovaManage from the native SAP environment; a product should be available to ship in the third quarter. And second, with the SAP DMS Document Management System interface, which it says will bring about bi-directional information flow, with a product due in the second quarter of 1998. The Burlington, Massachusetts- based company also announced its intentions to re-vamp the architecture of Novamanage, re-writing the client portion in Java, and making the server portion compliant with the CORBA Common Object Request Broker. Further details are promised for next month. Novasoft is also venturing into the financial industry, where former equity holder IBM Corp will be operating with its imminent EDMSuite (CI No 3,117), and has developed a set of visual rapid application development tools to build vertical market applications in-house as well as to license to partners such as Borland International Inc. In February, NovaManage announced its intentions to go public in 1998, but now says it may need to monitor the US Stock market closely before that can happen. A public offering is more likely to be made by late 1998 or early 1999.