SAP Outlines Group Strategy; Customers Increase Productivity and Business Intelligence Through Unprecedented Integration and Business Collaboration

Business Wire, April 23, 2001

Business Editors/Technology Writers

LISBON, Portugal--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

Today at its international e-business conference, SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) announced its strategy and organization to help businesses become more competitive.

The SAP group will build on an open integration strategy to rapidly exploit new technologies for current and future customers. SAP AG, SAPMarkets, Inc., and the recently announced SAP Portals, Inc., reflect this approach. Each entity has the respective expertise and lead responsibility for sales and development of mySAP.com(R) components, exchanges and portals. The net effect is to improve time-to-market for solutions that aid customers' ability to rapidly adapt to change.

SAP(R) Solutions Provide a New Level of Inclusive Integration

Based on this foundation are the specific solutions of the SAP group that provide the three necessary forms of integration to provide comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for global Internet business: component integration, process integration and user-level integration.

Component integration is provided within the mySAP.com(TM) Solutions, mySAP(TM) Supply Chain Management, mySAP(TM) Customer Relationship Management, mySAP(TM) Product Lifecycle Management, mySAP(TM) E-Procurement, mySAP(TM) Business Intelligence, mySAP(TM) Financials and mySAP(TM) Human Resources. Each component of these solutions provides complete horizontal integration ensuring that the services provided within a component are entirely integrated with other component services.

Collaborative process integration is provided by private and public exchanges from SAPMarkets. With the private exchange strategy announced today in Lisbon (see separate release), the SAP group now provides for collaborative business processes and their integration in and among enterprises. An exchange is able to transform point-to-point connections into many-to-many collaboration. With a private exchange, process and information friction points are reduced both internally and externally, facilitating collaboration and leading to improved efficiency.

User-level integration is provided through portals to be provided by the recently announced SAP Portals subsidiary. SAP Portals solutions will enable people to share information with others and collaborate in real time. With Drag-and-Relate Technology, people need simply click on an item such as a "customer" and relate it to "sales orders" to instantly explore all orders of that customer, regardless of where the information is located. SAP Portals solutions will quickly and easily provide answers to many of today's business questions.

Together, these forms of integration provide the framework businesses need to gain a competitive advantage.

Competitive Advantage for Customers

"The goal of our strategy is to provide our customers with an environment that finally solves the issues of integration and collaboration," said Hasso Plattner, co-chairman of the executive board, CEO and co-founder of SAP AG. "The result is likely to be a profound increase in the productivity and intelligence of business enterprises. Not only will islands of automation and information stovepipes cease to exist, clearing the way for a free flow of information, but new forms of business collaboration will become possible."

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of e-business software solutions. Through the mySAP.com(R) e-business platform, people in businesses around the globe are improving relationships with customers and partners, streamlining operations, and achieving significant efficiencies throughout their supply chains. Today, more than 13,000 companies in over 100 countries run more than 30,000 installations of SAP(R) software. With subsidiaries in over 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).

About SAPMarkets

SAPMarkets is the exchange company of SAP (NYSE:SAP) and delivers solutions that automate business processes across boundaries. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., SAPMarkets currently enables over 1,100 companies worldwide to use the Internet for greater agility, precision and profitability. SAPMarkets can be found at http://www.sapmarkets.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of SAP management. Any statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views and assumptions of SAP, and all forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect future SAP financial results are discussed more fully in SAP filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including the SAP Annual Report on Form 20-F. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.