SAP’s announcement of its portal strategy hogged the limelight at the company’s user conference this week, but the German software giant also used the show to roll out a number of new additions to its product range including the latest version of its data warehouse. The new version, release 1.2, of its business information warehouse (BIW) includes 45 new, pre-packaged infocubes; tools that enable users to analyze data and produce reports on specific areas.
Andrew Zoldan, SAP’s VP of New Dimension products said the release marks a new era in the company’s data warehousing vision. In the past, our data warehouse story has been a technical one, but with this version we’re really migrating to a much larger vision, he said, Rather than just concentrating on the technology, we’re building an infrastructure to attack the management processes. Zoldan said there were third party analytical tools available for BIW in the past but the infocubes in the latest release have all been developed by SAP in house. The tools provide roles-oriented reporting, which means people can personalize content from within BIW to suit their specific roles. Users can also have a choice of activities related to their role for typical reporting and analysis requirements such as marketing, sales, customer satisfaction and so on. Zoldan says 500 customers have already successfully implemented the first version of BIW and SAP is counting on the added analytical powers to boost sales further still.
The company also used the show to introduce Knowledge Warehouse 4.0, a product previously known as InfoDB. Knowledge Warehouse, available in the third quarter, is designed to help companies manage unstructured information, including non-SAP-related data, and deliver the information in real time to those who need it, the company said.
SAP also this week previewed the next version of its supply chain management application, Advanced Planner & Optimizer (APO). One new feature of release 2.0 will be collaborative planning, which will enable supply-chain partners to view, share and synchronize information over the internet. Collaborative planning will include web-enabled components, planning books – which allow users to view and change information such as marketing activities and sales-order forecasts – as well as an alert monitor, which informs partners about important changes. Another new feature, called Purchasing Workbench, lets users simulate company procurement processes to make decisions about vendors or product lot sizes. SAP APO 2.0 will be available in the fourth quarter on Windows NT for Oracle’s database or Microsoft’s SQL Server, as well as a version for Oracle on Unix.
Taking its TeamSAP initiative one step on, the software vendor also announced a new program called ValueSAP, designed to help customers get more out of their investment in SAP products. SAP will offer customers a combination of products, training, and services to help them increase productivity throughout the entire lifecycle from evaluation to implementation and ongoing support. The first deliverable is what SAP calls Continuous Business Improvement (CBI), a service through which SAP will help customers identify and adopt business practices that increase their profitability and competitiveness.
