SAP bridges the computing divide
Biz. Week | at | by Mike
The world of corporate computing has been divided into two hostile camps for some time. On one side: Microsoft and companies such as customer-relationship software leader Siebel Systems that have lined up behind Microsoft's .Net technology for building Web-based applications. On the other: The rival Java technology team, headed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Oracle. On Jan. 16, German software giant SAP came down solidly in both camps.
Rather than pick sides, SAP, the leader in the market for business finance, supply-chain, and human-resources applications has decided to straddle the great divide. Its entire array of software is being tooled to work with products using either .Net or Java. To help SAP afford the high cost of living in both worlds, and as a measure of how much the biggest rivals like the idea, both IBM and Microsoft are chipping in. Says SAP Co-CEO Hasso Plattner: "We're the only company that cooperates with both camps."