SAP Releases Business Information Warehouse 2.0

Computergram International, Sept 3, 1999

SAP AG, the German enterprise resource planning vendor, has released version two of its Business Information Warehouse (BW), adding a graphical information display capability, 75 new reporting templates for its reporting tool, and duplicated data storage. SAP BW's geographic information system uses technology from Redlands, California Esri Technology Inc for which SAP and Esri have jointly developed integration. It enables executives to display information in a more visual form that they can 'drill' into for reporting analysis.

The Walldorf, Germany-based firm has added 75 user roles, from sales account handler to purchaser to managing director, for its OLAP tool, for industries: oil and gas, retail, media, consumer products, banking, chemicals, automotive, telco, utilities, aerospace and defense and engineering and construction. SAP plans to add healthcare, higher education, high-tech, insurance, service provider, public sector, transportation, mill products and pharmaceuticals in the next BW release.

In addition, SAP has developed InfoCubes, pre-configured data marts oriented around 90 business areas such as human resources, that enable executives to run parallel reports on different sectors of their business. Operational Data Store mirrors data onto a separate server, giving users higher performance and security, although the performance tests are still being run, according to Peter Grendel, global corporate marketing manager for BW. BW 2.0 will be aimed predominantly at SAP's 22,000 R/3 users and will cost around 150,000 euros ($160,000) for a 250-user system. It starts shipping in December and all the new modules can be accessed using only a browser.