Interpath Expands ASP Reach, Signing California-Based Sagent Technology To SAP Enterprise Solutions Deal

Business Wire, Feb 28, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 28, 2000

--Interpath Also Signs IBM Global Services To Implement

And Support Hosted Enterprise Applications On Sun Servers--

Interpath Communications, the network-based Application Service Provider (ASP), today announced it has expanded its application offering footprint, signing a three-year deal to provide Mountain View, Calif.-based Sagent Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGNT), with SAP Accelerated Human Resources.

The deal will provide Sagent with a "self-service" solution for human resources, allowing more than 500 Sagent users worldwide to manage their own benefits and personal profile information. The number of users will be expanded to 2,000 over the next two years. Interpath will also employ IBM Global Services to provide advanced application implementation and support services for the SAP solutions-based enterprise applications residing on servers from Sun Microsystems, Inc.

"Interpath made it easy for a geographically-dispersed and fast-growing company like ours to quickly take advantage of the scalability and functionality of enterprise solutions such as those available from SAP," said Loretta Booker, vice president of Human Resources for Sagent Technology. "Interpath's all-inclusive packaging provides us one-stop shopping for a variety of services and offerings from the likes of SAP, IBM and Sun Microsystems."

Sagent will use the company-wide SAP Accelerated HR solution to administer organizational management, recruitment, benefits administration and compensation for more than 500 employees. Sagent's executives, managers and employees will be able to easily view and modify data such as benefits information and vacation balances over the company's intranet, thus freeing the HR department from time-consuming data entry and related customer service activities.

"Because we've established and integrated our relationships with hardware, software and services companies, Interpath customers receive best-of-breed solutions that make logistic and financial sense to companies like Sagent," said Michael Fox, interim president and CEO of Interpath. "IBM Global Services' proven track record with implementing and supporting SAP solutions on Sun's solid platform will provide our customers the highest level of comfort when implementing and supporting an enterprise solution."

IBM Global Services To Implement And Support Interpath's SAP Application Hosting

Interpath will utilize IBM Global Services to implement the SAP Accelerated Human Resources solution for Sagent. SAP Accelerated Human Resources streamlines implementations because it is preconfigured for the most frequent and essential HR requirements. By hosting SAP solutions residing on Sun(TM) servers and supporting them with IBM's services organization, Interpath can offer businesses like Sagent reliable, high availability and financially feasible SAP HR and Financial solutions on a nationwide basis.

"IBM not only understands the Enterprise application environment as a whole, but the technical implementation process as well," said Michael Plymack, Regional Offering Executive of Application Management Services for ERP at IBM Global Services. "Working closely with Interpath, we will provide the skills and expertise needed to support the ERP applications and allow Interpath's customers to focus their resources on strategic initiatives."

The continued collaboration between Interpath, SAP, IBM and Sun will provide small- and medium-sized companies a simplified, affordable and reliable alternative for obtaining enterprise solutions, supported by IBM Global Services. Sun's systems are widely known for their reliable, scalable and highly available performance, while the Solaris(TM) operating environment is the premier software environment for network computing.

"For SAP application delivery and beyond, Sun has optimized products, services and business practices to align with application service providers like Interpath," said Greg Rucki, director of Sun's SAP Business Unit. "Interpath's offering demonstrates a progressive vision for computing delivered over the network. By using Sun server and storage technology and the Solaris operating environment, Interpath can give their customers highly reliable and cost-effective SAP solutions."

Interpath's Enterprise Applications

Hosted solutions from Interpath allow businesses to benefit from rapid implementation and a single point of contact for business solutions. Interpath's in-house consulting organization will continue to integrate and implement solutions for other partners.

Interpath combines its own fiber network, Interpath Operations Center and call center, to offer speed to market advantages, lower implementation costs, reduced IT investment, 24x7 monitoring and one point of contact for network, system and application management. Interpath also provides business services including consulting integration, network security expertise and application integration and hosting. Interpath currently runs its SAP solutions on Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Solaris(TM) operating environment, Enterprise(TM) servers and StorEdge(TM) storage systems.