NEWSBYTES

Newsbytes from SAPPHIRE 2008

• OSIsoft Announces New Products
  In 2007, OSIsoft joined the SAP AMI Lighthouse council, a consortium with the objective of integrating the SAP® for Utilities solution to market-leading AMI systems. The company has now added two products for their Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Smart Grid initiatives. OSIsoft delivers the PI System, the industry standard in enterprise infrastructure for management of time series data and events. PI Smart Connectors and PI Business Gateways.

  PI Smart Connectors interface AMI systems to the PI System. These connectors automatically discover meters, configure the data points and collect data. They are designed to leverage templates to allow mass changes to meter attributes and configurations, providing customers with the flexibility to change and rapidly create new business rules. PI Business Gateways receive, schedule and respond to service requests from back office systems that require communication and data from the AMI systems. The PI Business Gateway is tightly coupled with PI Smart Connectors to provide fast, bi-directional communication between PI and the AMI head-end systems for functions including connect and disconnect, last gasp, ping, on-demand reads and price signals for demand response.

• CIBER Becomes Certified SAP Hosting Partner
  SAP service partner CIBER, Inc. (NYSE: CBR) announced yesterday that its CIBER Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) division is now a certified SAP hosting partner for the Americas. CIBER provides clients with single-source support for the entire solution lifecycle – from enterprise architecture through application development and integration, to application management and infrastructure support. The company develops, enhances and manages business applications using a globally distributed delivery model that focuses on building long-term relationships with its clients.

• Business Beyond Boundaries (May 7, 2008)
  How does SAP help companies optimize their business performance now? In an interview with SAP INFO, the SAP customer magazine, SAP Co-CEO Henning Kagermann provided his insight. "In the past we have mostly focused on the operational and tactical levels," says Kagermann. "Now we focus on a strategic level as well and try to integrate both approaches. Linking strategic decisions to operational plans and executing are key for business success." Read the complete interview in the July/August issue.



• Smithfield Foods Taps SAP to Manage Complex, Global Business (May 7, 2008)
  With annual revenue approaching $12 billion, pork processor Smithfield Foods faces numerous challenges across its expanding global business. At SAPPHIRE® 2008, Mike Schmidt, director of IT, Supply Chain, Smithfield, said that the company is utilizing SAP® ERP to help drive improved product margins, manage complexities surrounding rising fuel and grain prices, and enable catch weight capabilities to accurately manage and value inventory.
  
  "As our business continues to grow both organically and through mergers and acquisitions, it is critical that we have a powerful IT backbone to help us better manage costs while driving revenues," said Schmidt. "Through our strategy of having our operating companies implement or upgrade to SAP 6.0, we are ensuring we have the capabilities to run our business at optimal performance."



• SAP and ASUG Going Green (May 7, 2008)
  SAP and ASUG have made some environmentally conscious adjustments at SAPPHIRE® 2008. The organizations have created a more compact on-site guide and are issuing electronic – rather than printed – daily updates of the conferences.



• Maximize the Value of Your SAP Investment (May 7, 2008)
  "We want to work together with SAP, not against them," says Rod Masney, chairperson of the Board of Directors, America's SAP Users' Group (ASUG). "We feel that we have great sponsorship and support from the SAP Board. At the end of the day SAP customers and ASUG members win because of the strategic and mutually supportive partnership of our organizations. That's a key takeaway for me."
  
  Read more of the conversation with Masney during SAPPHIRE® 2008 and the ASUG Annual Conference in Orlando in the next issue of SAP INFO.



• SAP® CRM 2007: Power Unleashed (May 6, 2008)
  Press and analysts convened to discuss current and future customer relationship management (CRM) trends during a lively roundtable discussion titled "CRM: Creating Superior Customer Value" at SAPPHIRE® 2008 Orlando. Roundtable participants were curious to learn more about the success of SAP® CRM 2007 and where it falls within SAP's overall product strategy.
  
  "With SAP CRM 2007, the power of SAP has been unleashed," said Jujhar Singh, senior vice president, CRM Product Management, SAP. "Over the past two years we have worked hand in hand with customers to make SAP CRM 2007 more user-friendly. This is a watershed product in our release cycle and extends capabilities across all areas of functionality. Specifically, we have built comprehensive end-to-end functionality, tying together back-end and front-office processes for key capabilities such as trade promotions management and marketing development funds. We are by no means done with innovation; we are on an aggressive path to bring greater capabilities and depth of process expertise to our customers, and our recent co-innovation partnership with Research In Motion is proof of this."



• SAP Americas Launches Fast-Start Program for SAP® Business All-in-One With Partner Support (May 6, 2008)
  Following the February announcement of a new fast-start program for SAP® Business All-in-One, the program is now live in the United States. Several value-added resellers have already committed to the program and its preconfigured and preinstalled offerings, which include hardware, database and operating system. As qualified partners, companies stand ready to offer solutions that are based on customers' preselected requirements from the online solution configurator tool. Fast-start pioneers in the US market include B4, Bramasol, Ciber, Sage, SophLogic and Tahoe Partners.



• SAPPHIRE Then and Now: The Making of a Customer Event (May 6, 2008)
  What began in 1989 as the International R/2 User Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland has grown into a global gathering, drawing people from more than 70 countries, representing 30 industries and more than 7,000 companies. Today, SAPPHIRE is SAP's signature annual event, where senior executives, business managers, and decision makers can meet with SAP managers, industry peers and partners to explore new ideas, new strategies and new opportunities.
  
  However, the event's growth has not been without organizational and logistics challenges. Even as late as five years ago, there was only one SAPPHIRE event in North America. SAPPHIRE 2004 in New Orleans, for example, took six months of planning and accommodated 8,000 attendees. This year those numbers are expected to triple, with up to 30,000 attendees across dual SAPPHIRE events in Orlando, Florida and Berlin, Germany. And the planning phase – even for a single event – now involves nine months, more than 50 teams and hundreds of people.



• CSR Leaders from Around the Globe Convene for Roundtable Discussion on the Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainability in a Web 2.0 World (May 6, 2008)
  On May 6, beginning at 1 p.m. EDT, SAP will host a forum on one of the hottest topics in business today – how Web 2.0 impacts companies' corporate social responsibility strategies and reporting. The event will focus on private sector accountability and governance, risk and compliance, as well as broad corporate responsibility performance, to address the challenges and opportunities of sustainability reporting in a Web 2.0 world. Together with James Farrar, vice president of CSR at SAP, Steve Rochlin, head of AccountAbility North America, will lead an interactive discussion with some of the most influential minds in corporate social responsibility today. SAP embraces the use of Web 2.0 to engage with its communities in discussions on current topics including governance, transparency and education. The CSR forum on how Web 2.0 shapes the role of corporate accountability utilizes a wiki to allow online attendees to contribute to the discussion and continue the dialogue on an ongoing basis.



• Business Objects Partners Embrace New SAP Referral Program (May 5, 2008)
  Announced in April 2008, the new SAP Referral program rewards referrals from both SAP partners and non-partners in the small business and midsize company market. Business Objects partners are already embracing this program; in less than one month, over 20 Business Objects partners have signed up and have already started to generate leads for SAP. At the deal closure, these Business Objects partners will receive a percentage of the net SAP license value. The SAP Referral program offers also Business Objects partners a great opportunity to have a "trial run" as an SAP reseller before fully committing to the program.



• Business Objects Small and Midsized Enterprise Reseller Program Opened to SAP Partners (May 5, 2008)
  SAP channel partners can now resell the BusinessObjects Edge Series, a simple, affordable and proven suite of business intelligence products for small and midsize companies. SAP channel partners are embracing the opportunities to provide small and midsize companies with the solutions they need to optimize their business performance To date, over 60 SAP partners have enrolled in the program.



• Competing on Talent: Partners, Customers Join SAP Executives in Dialogue on Issues of Recruiting and Developing Skilled IT Talent Worldwide (May 5, 2008)
  Claus Heinrich, Executive Board member of SAP AG, hosted the roundtable discussion "Competing for Talent" on Monday, May 5. The roundtable follows on a newly released study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and brings together customers, partners and representatives from the SAP University Alliances program to discuss the challenges and opportunities in developing and recruiting the next generation of skilled IT workers. The survey, which queried more than 900 C-level executives and people managers in emerging markets of Brazil, China, India, and Russia and developed markets of France, Germany, Japan, UK and US, identifies concerns and trends in recruitment of workers with the necessary skill sets to meet ongoing business challenges. Joining Heinrich were Bernd-Michael Rumpf, global head of Field Services, SAP; Bill Yoh, president and CEO, Yoh Services; Mark Willford, US managing partner for SAP, Accenture; and Simha Magal, Seidman School of Business, Grand Valley State University.ld

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