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SAP Next-Generation Enterprise Portal Technology

SAP Portals Inc, a leading provider of open-enterprise portal and business intelligence products and a wholly owned subsidiary of SAP AG, announced that the new release of the SAP Portals Enterprise Portal will deliver the most innovative design and cross-product integration available in a portal solution.

New features of the Enterprise Portal include automatic content synchronization, an open knowledge management platform and the industry's first set of complete business packages. The SAP Portals Enterprise Portal transcends the basic information aggregation and Web-enabled access to applications provided by other portal solutions and unifies business processes across the enterprise. This enables organizations seeking to leverage vital enterprise information assets for strategic advantage and profitability to improve productivity, promote collaboration and swiftly resolve business events.

The SAP Portals Enterprise Portal's enhanced open unification platform now provides a new level of relevance and functionality to end users by eliminating traditional barriers to productivity created by disparate information, applications and services. As a result, appropriate information is delivered to the right person at the right time, intelligent decisions are supported, and, therefore, business throughput is accelerated. Users work seamlessly through a dynamic user interface to gain tangible increases in efficiency, quality and value through the unification of critical information sources including applications, data warehouses, unstructured documents, the Internet and Web services.

"The first impact we observed after launching the SAP Portals Enterprise Portal was a profound effect on our sales process," said Rich West, president of TriVirix International. "Potential customers reached a higher level of comfort with us as a potential partner sooner in the sales process because of our willingness and capability to share a broad spectrum of data in real time. This has translated into a shortened sales cycle and faster growth. Of course, the enterprise portal is a critical component in providing everyone with access to the same information, enabling us to better manage relationships and achieve increased comfort with existing customers. We also expect to achieve significant benefits in operational efficiency as our company grows."

The SAP Portals Enterprise Portal provides customers with a flexible, scalable, easy-to-administer enterprise portal with the following enhanced capabilities:

• Unification delivers relevance and accelerates productivity by eliminating traditional barriers between enterprise applications. Drag&Relate capabilities allow users to relate information from disparate sources and navigate multiple systems as one.
• Business intelligence integration weaves data warehousing, reporting and analysis, planning and simulation, and business performance management with prebuilt business content to provide relevant and actionable business analysis to a broad user base.
• The new open knowledge management platform turns unstructured information into accessible and usable organizational knowledge featuring advanced categorizing and searching capabilities, collaborative functionality, and an open repository framework supported by notification capabilities.
• An extended Internet management architecture provides employees with access to Internet content and services through pre-established role-based permissions, leveraging industry standards for direct access to Web services and extending the enterprise, all within the portal.
• New business packages deliver relevant context through preconfigured collections of premium portal content related to a user's business role in the organization. The packages deliver tools while streamlining access for immediate efficiency gains and minimized time to deployment.

"With the new SAP Portals Enterprise Portal, we are delivering on our vision to unify every business process in the ecosystem to drive business innovation," said Shai Agassi, chief executive officer of SAP Portals. "Only when users can unify all the vital assets of the enterprise, including applications, information and services, can they achieve true process collaboration and swift resolution of business events."

The SAP Portals Enterprise Portal supports open standards such as Java, J2EE, XML, SOAP and Microsoft .NET as well as security standards such as LDAP, Active Directory Services, PKI and X.509 and wireless and mobile device accessibility for anytime, anywhere accessibility to enable users and heterogeneous systems to interact across organizational boundaries. Single sign-on and session management eliminate the need for numerous passwords and user identifications. A multiserver approach allows for true enterprise scalability, in addition to intuitive server configuration tools that ease deployment and provide automated configuration tools.

"Companies looking to effectively manage business content across any size enterprise are turning to enterprise portal solutions that demonstrate strong unification capabilities and a completely open knowledge management platform," said Gene Phifer, vice president and research director at Gartner Inc.

Actionable Information Through Relevant Business Analysis

In addition to features and functions provided with the SAP Portals Enterprise Portal, SAP Portals Business Intelligence combines data warehousing with comprehensive analytics to help companies visually represent and align business strategies, communicate strategies and goals throughout the entire organization, collect feedback from major stakeholders, and quickly adjust strategies according to market conditions. Interoperability through SAP Portals Drag&Relate functionality enables knowledge workers to achieve an unparalleled ability to quickly access and relate information from any source for reporting and analysis.

Increased Context Strengthens User Experience

Depending on a user's role and needed function, SAP Portals offers Business Packages that provide preconfigured collections of portal content to dynamically deliver the right access, context and navigation.

Business Packages exist for horizontal functions such as employee self-service, manager self-service and collaboration, as well as for vertical functions such as financials, e-commerce and human resources functions. SAP Portals also offers Business Packages that deliver the tools and capabilities needed to link users to the applications they need. With these, organizations can easily give employees access to enterprise systems, collaborative applications, syndicated information sources, and vendor and supplier systems.

SAP Portals Enterprise Portal is available globally.

About SAP Portals

SAP Portals Inc is a wholly owned subsidiary of SAP AG with headquarters in Silicon Valley, Calif. The company employs more than 900 professionals worldwide, with approximately 6 million users and more than 5,000 customers.

SAP Portals empowers collaboration and intelligent action by unifying applications, information and services to achieve higher levels of efficiency, enhance the quality of relationships and maximize value across the business. The SAP Portals portfolio includes enterprise portals, business intelligence, premium content offerings and professional services. SAP Portals provides value-driven solutions that significantly impact companies' total cost of ownership, achieving a return on investment unattainable by any other software provider.

More information about SAP Portals is available on the Web at www.sapportals.com or by calling 800-360-3328.