IBM and SAP Portals Inc. to Provide WebSphere Portal Server Customers Access to Key Enterprise Applications

Business Wire, June 13, 2001

Business & Hi-Tech Editors

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 2001

IBM to include a Java version of SAP Portals iViewServer in its

WebSphere Portal Server

IBM today announced an agreement with SAP Portals, Inc., to enable customers to integrate key enterprise business applications from SAP, PeopleSoft Inc., Baan, Oracle Financials and others into portal solutions deployed using IBM's WebSphere Portal Server.

This agreement will enable WebSphere Portal Server customers to maximize their enterprise application investments while using integrated portal solutions to make smart business decisions rapidly. As part of the agreement, IBM will have the ability to resell and distribute SAP Portals iViews, which provide users access to the key enterprise business applications.

The two companies also said that under the terms of the agreement, SAP Portals will provide a Java 2 Enterprise Edition version of its iViewServer that IBM will license and include in the IBM WebSphere Portal Server.

"Customers want a horizontal framework to deploy portal solutions that deliver a single point of personalized interaction to a wide variety of content sources, processes, applications and people. Our agreement with SAP Portals allows us to extend the customer value of WebSphere Portal Server by providing integrated access to many of the leading cross-industry, enterprise applications," said Larry Bowden, vice president, e-Portals solutions, IBM Software Group.

"Our goal at SAP Portals is to create value and competitive advantage for organizations by allowing them to collaborate effectively anywhere, anytime within the organization, with their partners or customers to access, share and intelligently use information to make better business decisions," said Shai Agassi, CEO of SAP Portals. "We are very pleased that this partnership will now allow us to offer SAP customers and non-SAP customers the best of SAP Portals' business process knowledge and rich content together with IBM's WebSphere family of e-business infrastructure software."

SAP Portals iViews allow users to leverage their enterprise portal to provide content-rich data from many different sources and search those information sources to answer all kinds of user questions. SAP Portals iViewServer provides users with personalization, security and single sign-on features as well as extensibility and solid functionality that incorporate the most popular and most critical aspects of each enterprise application.

"The next generation of enterprise portals will provide unification in new and creative ways, allowing users to access information and knowledge assets of the enterprise from whatever device they choose," said Gene Phifer, Vice President and Research Director, Gartner. "The Portal product vendors who are aggressively moving to include these features into their offerings and can provide customers with the ability to tightly integrate enterprise applications into the portal space will be very well positioned for success."

IBM's WebSphere Portal Server, the core of IBM's portal strategy, provides a scalable framework for enabling the aggregation of applications and information from various content sources, including corporate data and the Internet, into a personalized portal. IBM's portal software offers navigation, customization, personalization, information and application interaction, pervasive device support, syndicated content access, integration for federated search and categorization, and user or group administration. WebSphere Portal Server has been designed to meet customers' needs in deploying B2E, B2B and B2C portal solutions.

The WebSphere Portal Server enhancements and the SAP Portals iViews that support integrated access to business applications from SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, Oracle Financials and others will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001.

About IBM Corporation

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Software offers the widest range of applications, middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. The fastest way to get more information about IBM software is through the IBM Software home page at http://www.software.ibm.com . For more information about WebSphere Portal Server visit www.ibm.com/software/webservers/portal.> About SAP Portals

The enterprise portal and information management products of SAP Portals, Inc. provide the simplest, most powerful way for people to take direct charge of information and processes. People are empowered with one entry point to all of the structured and unstructured data that they need to do their jobs, including information from ERP, CRM and SCM systems, legacy systems, Web content management and collaboration tools. SAP Portals is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) with headquarters in Silicon Valley, California. For more information about SAP Portals visit us on the Web at http://www.sapportals.com or call 800-360-3328.