FSN: SAP and Intel collaborate to offer pre-installed business solutions for midsize companies

SAP and Intel collaborate to offer pre-installed business solutions for midsize companies

10th March 2008
SAP has set out to make its SME and mid-market solutions more attractive in an increasingly competitive market following hard on the heels of its “ SAP Configurator ” announcement just a couple of weeks ago. The new offering for SAP Business All-in-One is designed to combine software, database and hardware into one package, with all components optimized to help midsize companies drive down costs and make implementation a smoother and quicker process.

The new offering is based on Intel Xeon-based systems via original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and hardware system providers based on SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell and the SAP MaxDB database. The offering targets midsize companies in the manufacturing, service and trade industries and is designed to address the need for quick and easy implementation, scalable solutions and predictable costs.

“The powerful combination of advanced hardware innovation, quad core Intel® Xeon® processors and SAP Business All-in-One will bring substantial business benefits and lower cost for mid-market customers,” said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Enterprise Group, Intel Corp. “Together with SAP, we plan to offer a solution that is optimized and validated on the Intel Xeon Processor Architecture and deployed on modular servers by our partner OEM system providers.”

“To succeed in the SME market, software and hardware vendors must develop offerings to meet the specific performance demands of small and midsize companies, but that is not easy,” said Ray Boggs, VP of small and medium business research, IDC. “Industry-specific capabilities that can be readily implemented in an affordable way will be key, but so will having offerings that are easy to access, with hardware and software already aligned. In effect, customers will be looking to reconcile the somewhat contradictory goals of a solution designed to meet their individual needs but in an almost pre-configured fashion to minimize time and cost.”

“With SUSE Linux Enterprise, midsize customers are able to optimize both their SAP functionality and their infrastructure, including a fully integrated, validated technology stack to reduce complexity and increase manageability and reduce total cost of ownership,” said Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Novell. “It is the open platform of choice, fully supported and delivering ease of use with quality innovation.”

SAP partners in the mid-market have welcomed the development. SAP has had considerable success in the rapidly growing Indian market and commenting on the announcement, Sangita Singh, SVP and head EAS, Wipro Technologies, an SAP global services partner said, “The offering and the aligned components will provide SME customers with an excellent on-premise solution that is instantly ready to use.

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