WALLDORF, Germany, and REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 14, 1999 — SAP AG (NYSE ADR: SAP), the leading provider of inter-enterprise software solutions, and Microsoft Corp., the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing, today announced an enhancement to their global partnership. SAP has chosen Microsoft® SQL Server TM 7.0 as its strategic database for the Windows® platform. In addition, the companies will cooperate to make the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system available as a platform choice for customers that wish to implement mySAP.com TM solutions. mySAP.com is an open collaborative business environment of personalized solutions on demand that enables companies of all sizes and industries to fully engage their employees, customers and partners to capitalize upon the new Internet economy.
SAP plans to replace Oracle with SQL Server 7.0 as the primary database on the Windows platform for almost all 150 internal development and production systems within SAP. In addition, some 200 SAP internal training and customer demonstration and presentation systems will be migrated to SQL Server.
Microsoft also announced that it is the first mySAP.com customer to use Windows 2000 for its productive implementation of SAP™ inter-enterprise software solutions. Since August 1999, Microsoft has been using SAP solutions running on SQL Server 7.0 and Windows 2000 to ensure the readiness and stability of the new Windows 2000 platform.
“With the availability of mySAP.com, SAP is seeing increased demand for SAP solutions built on SQL Server and Windows,”
said Karl-Heinz Hess, member of the extended executive board, SAP AG.
“SAP is pleased to extend its partnership with Microsoft to provide broader platform support and choices to customers implementing mySAP.com solutions via support of Windows 2000.”
This announcement is an extension of the agreement signed between SAP AG and Microsoft Europe, which was announced in October 1999. Under the terms of the initial agreement, the two companies are working together to expand the acceptance of Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 as a cost-effective and scalable platform for implementations of the mySAP.com solution for end-to-end Internet collaboration. Both companies are making investments in technical pre-sales and sales support personnel, skills transfer, and the cross-training of their respective sales forces and consulting organizations.
“Microsoft’s partnership with SAP is focused on delivering to customers mySAP.com solutions that are clearly superior in performance, quality and value,”
said Paul Maritz, group vice president of the Developer Group at Microsoft.
“The internal adoption by SAP of SQL Server 7.0 is a significant testimonial to the increasing confidence SAP has placed in our database, and will help improve all aspects of our joint solutions. Combined with internal SAP support of Windows 2000 as well as Microsoft’s internal support of SAP solutions on Windows 2000, we jointly offer a compelling solution for our enterprise customers.”
Microsoft Windows NT® is the fastest-growing platform for SAP solutions today, with the majority of new SAP installations worldwide choosing Windows NT over UNIX and other platforms. Microsoft SQL Server is the fastest-growing database platform on the Windows operating system for SAP solutions today. At the end of third-quarter 1999, more than 50 percent of new SAP installations in the United States on Windows NT have selected SQL Server over other database platforms, resulting in over 2,000 Windows NT and SQL Server-based installations worldwide.
“SAP has been integral to the design of SQL Server, and Microsoft has a team of engineers dedicated to optimizing the performance, scalability and quality of SAP solutions and SQL Server together,”
said Paul Flessner, vice president of SQL Server, Microsoft.
“Today’s adoption by SAP of SQL Server as the strategic Windows-based database for internal development will help ensure that even the largest enterprise customers of SAP will be able to benefit from the fact that the platform offers the fastest time-to-market and the best overall cost-of-ownership.”
mySAP.com solutions, including the following, are currently available on SQL Server and Windows NT: the Workplace server, Business-to-Business Procurement, Customer Relationship Management, Strategic Enterprise Management and Knowledge Management. SQL Server is also used by SAP as the local database for mobile users of the Customer Relationship Management solution. In addition, the Business Information Warehouse (BW) solution is available on SQL Server 7.0. Microsoft is currently using BW for its internal production systems.
As an additional element of the companies’ joint activities for mySAP.com, Microsoft has prepared a migration offering to enable clients to migrate from Oracle to SQL Server 7.0 and Windows 2000. SAP and Microsoft have also recently announced that SAP is a global launch partner for Microsoft Windows 2000.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
About SAP
As the market leader of inter-enterprise software solutions, SAP is leveraging its strength in industry-focused business software and the world’s largest enterprise software customer base to deliver mySAP.com. mySAP.com provides an open collaborative business environment of personalized solutions on demand. This enables companies of all sizes and industries to fully engage their employees, customers and partners to capitalize upon the new Internet economy.
mySAP.com allows people to harness the power of the Internet to work smarter, better and faster by optimizing supply chains, managing strategic relationships, reducing time to market, sharing virtual information, and increasing productivity and shareholder value.
SAP is listed on several exchanges including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol
“SAP.”
The SAP World Wide Web site can be found at http://www.sap.com .
SAP, mySAP.com and all SAP product and service names herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG.
Microsoft, Windows and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
©Copyright 1999, SAP AG