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SAP unveils Business Suite 7

Alex Serpo ZDNet Australia

Published: 05 Feb 2009 17:56 GMT

Global software giant SAP on Wednesday announced the release of Business Suite 7, including updates to all the business applications available with the suite.

Business Suite 7 — which includes SAP ERP, CRM, Supply Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management — is now built around different industry 'scenarios'.

Doug Gibson, director of SAP solutions group for Australian and NZ, said this was the first time all the SAP business applications had been combined into a single release schedule. "However, while there is now one release cycle, you can upgrade the packages individually, you don't have to take everything," he said.

"You have a common UI, you can extend processes across all [Business Suite 7 applications]. You can literally follow a process from CRM through to your back-end transactions."

SAP is launching Business Suite 7 in conjunction with global partners such as EDS and IBM, along with smaller partners including Wipro, Atos Origin and Capgemini. When asked if the new business suite put SAP ahead of close rival Oracle, Gibson said: "What we offer is a nicely integrated view of transactions across the various engines. Oracle has grown through acquisitions".

He added: "I'm not bagging Oracle... but they have a different approach. They have various transaction engines that have to integrate through a middleware layer."