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Before 7,000 customers and partners at the recently
concluded annual Lotusphere Conference held in Orlando, Florida,
USA, IBM and SAP AG announced plans to deliver their first joint
software product codenamed "Atlantic" that will integrate
IBM Lotus Notes software with SAP Business Suite.
The combined efforts to create
"Atlantic" will result in a new style of applications that
present information and data in the context of users familiar with
the Lotus Notes desktop. This will make it easier for users to do
their jobs and greatly enhance the return on investment that
companies have made.
Providing workers with access to
critical business information in this intuitive, easy-to-use
interface will enable timely, more informed business decisions. All
types of employees can benefit from increased business analysis,
information capabilities and the power to run their business
operations directly from their Lotus Notes desktop.
"We're creating a richer
collaboration environment. Businesses are looking to find better
ways to collaborate and manage their business processes," said
Michael Rhodin, general manager, IBM Lotus Software.
"This IBM-SAP solution
addresses both challenges in one seamless package for millions of
users. It also solidifies further our partnership with SAP that is
currently very strong here in country," added Nicanor Jorge,
Software Group country manager, IBM Philippines.
IBM Lotus and SAP have thousands
of mutual customers who have been asking for the functionality that
"Atlantic" software will provide. The majority of IBM's
top 100 customers also use SAP solutions.
"SAP and IBM Lotus are
strategic partners to The Coca-Cola Company," said Jean
Michel-Ares, CIO, Coca-Cola Company. "Our IT goal is to help
our people to be more responsive, productive and effective, and SAP
and IBM Lotus have helped us get closer to that goal. The
partnership between IBM Lotus, SAP and The Coca-Cola Company
promises to deliver additional value to our associates and improve
the tools they use every day."
"Lotus has been an innovator
in collaboration for 20 years. This agreement is great example of
how SAP enables our customers to empower their users by providing
easy access to SAP business processes and data through productivity
tools and user interfaces of their choice," said Vishal Sikka,
CTO, SAP. "Furthermore, it reaffirms the strong commitment we
have to our partnership with IBM."
For more than 35 years, IBM and
SAP have collaborated to bring joint customers cutting-edge
solutions to improve business efficiency at more than 13,000 client
sites for their millions of users. Currently planned for inclusion
in the first release of project "Atlantic" is support for
SAP workflows, reporting and analytics, and the use of roles from
within the Lotus Notes client. In addition, tools are planned to be
included to provide the ability to extend and adapt these roles and
capabilities, as well as leverage additional collaborative and
offline capabilities inherent in Lotus Notes and Domino products.
The initial release is planned to ship in the fourth quarter of 2008
and will be sold by both companies.
If customization of the product
is required, IBM Global Business Services will be available to
provide consulting and perform services. SAP practitioners, other
global and regional systems integrators will also be enabled to
customize "Atlantic" software to meet demand.
SAP Business Suite is a
comprehensive family of adaptive business applications, providing
best-in-class functionality built for complete integration,
industry-specific capability, unlimited scalability, and easy
collaboration over the Internet. Individually, SAP Business Suite
applications customers manage their most critical business
processes. Collectively, they form a tightly integrated suite that
adds value to every facet of large and small organizations,
including banks, hospitals, retail establishments, government
agencies and a variety of other businesses, and their external value
chains.
IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8
enterprise collaboration software was developed with input from more
than 25,000 customers. Lotus Notes 8 software transforms the inbox
into an integrated workspace. It brings together email, calendar,
instant messaging, productivity tools like Lotus Symphony,
collaborative applications, and the ability to build and deploy
customer business or third-party applications, including help desk,
customer relationship management, sales force, discussion forms and
blogs.
Lotus Notes and Domino products
have had approximately 135 million licensed users worldwide.
Companies of all sizes, industries and technology lineages are
embracing the latest version as the most comprehensive and versatile
open collaboration platform they've used.
--Tech Times Online
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