SAP Enterprise Search Simplifies User Access to Information, Enhancing Productivity Across the Enterprise

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Delivering on its commitment to help customers experience the business value of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today unveiled SAP(R) Enterprise Search, an application that allows information workers to easily locate and leverage critical business data from internal and external sources to save time and increase productivity. The new and enhanced capabilities work across a company's existing IT infrastructure, pulling content from SAP and non-SAP systems, to support faster and smarter decision making. SAP Enterprise Search is available for developers to download today, with commercial availability planned for 2007. The announcement was made at SAP(R) TechEd '06, being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 12 - 15.

With the release of SAP Enterprise Search, following on the heels of the successful release of SAP's business intelligence accelerator early this year, SAP is continuing to drive information to mass audiences within the enterprise. Both offerings allow users to achieve the same experience they have grown to expect on the Web, only now transparently provided from a multitude of structured or unstructured enterprise sources. SAP Enterprise Search empowers information workers who are overwhelmed by data and challenged to effectively locate information across multiple information sources inside and outside the enterprise. The new deep search capabilities will allow these workers to conduct secure granular searches across all enterprise information assets and can enhance their productivity by relating actionable results at their fingertips in an easy, consistent and secure way. Thus, information workers will be able to access the right information quickly and take action based on solid data, achieving smarter and faster business decisions.

"Enterprise search is fast becoming mission-critical software for enterprises," writes Matthew Brown, senior analyst, Forrester Research, in "The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Search Platforms, Q2 2006, Forrester Research, Inc., June 2006." "Over the past five years, vast improvements in the quality of public search engines has raised the bar for what employees expect to get from search inside the enterprise. As a result, search technology is taking center stage, and it's playing an important role in markets as diverse as eDiscovery, business intelligence, security, media and entertainment, and eCommerce. Over the next five years, we'll see more and more companies turn to search solutions to help navigate the rising tide of digital information."

SAP brings together the four key elements of an enterprise search solution: structured information, unstructured information, business context and openness. Unlike search engines that solely perform text-based searches, only SAP Enterprise Search delivers complete business context by considering the enterprise schema and data model as well as the role, preferences and intentions of the person conducting the search. With this application, information workers will be able to "jump" directly from a set of results into a business transaction, report or workspace. For example, a sales executive can leverage SAP Enterprise Search to prepare for a customer visit by searching for the best-suited internal expert to support a product presentation, locating detailed customer information from operational systems, and even finding maps and driving directions to a meeting. The information returned comes from the company's core applications, textual collections and the Web, and is aggregated and delivered in a manner that the user expects and can leverage immediately.

SAP Enterprise Search includes the main search engine within the SAP NetWeaver(R) platform and new search capabilities delivered as enterprise services. Existing search functionality within SAP NetWeaver allows information to be indexed, organized and delivered directly into applications supporting the enterprise's core business processes. The new search capabilities, delivered as standard Web services, enhance performance and usability by offering numerous user interfaces for searching across a diverse IT landscape of SAP and non-SAP systems. Simplicity is key, with the new search capabilities providing users a quick and easy way to locate and act on information.

SAP Enterprise Search leverages enterprise SOA to support a large number of unique user interfaces designed for everyone in the enterprise who needs to interact with business data. For example, SAP Enterprise Search will be made available as a browser-based user interface for simple Web consumption, a desktop widget for quick access and will be embedded in mySAP(TM) ERP 2005 as seamless functionality. Plans are also in place to deploy SAP Enterprise Search on an SAP appliance, as an enhancement to SAP's business intelligence accelerator.

"Enterprise search is a novel new user experience for enterprise applications," said Shai Agassi, president of the Product and Technology Group and member of the executive board, SAP AG. "We have demonstrated that in order for people to be efficient they should get access to their information in the way that best fits the context of their current task. SAP Enterprise Search makes enterprise applications instantly usable for everyone."

Availability

SAP Enterprise Search is available today for developers via free trial download on SDN (https://www.sdn.sap.com/ ) and planned for commercial availability in 2007. Developers who download and install the application will be able to create new interfaces and add search grammar to tune the solution to the unique needs of their enterprise. In further support of community participation, developers will also be able to embed the capabilities in other applications and create new search services to enable additional information sources to be part of the query. SAP Enterprise Search runs on SAP NetWeaver 2004s and includes open search interfaces which make it easy to connect to third-party information sources and search engines, including desktop search tools.

SAP(R) TechEd '06 in Las Vegas, Tokyo, Amsterdam and Bangalore

More than 5,000 SAP customers, partners and technical community are convening at SAP(R) TechEd '06 to learn how to transform existing business processes and IT landscapes and take advantage of the power and flexibility of enterprise service-oriented architecture. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, SAP's largest ecosystem education event of the year offers more than 900 hours of lecture-driven and hands-on sessions. SAP TechEd is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 12 - 15; Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 5 - 6; Amsterdam, Oct. 18 - 20 and Bangalore, India, Nov. 8 - 10, 2006. For more information, please visit http://www.sapteched.com/.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software*. Today, more than 34,600 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP(R) applications -- from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize enterprises to suite offerings for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(R) platform to drive innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com/ )

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.

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