SAP R/3

SAP R/3 is the SAP client-server solution; it has proved hugely popular in many countries. The solution is available to many more companies than R/2 as a mainframe is not required.

It consists of the following modules:

The strenght of their products have played the central role in SAP's success story. In this area, two milestones stand out: first, the development and 1979 market release of the R/2 software system for mainframes, and, second, the R/3 client/server software system introduced in 1992. Since its debut, the R/3 System use has grown explosively and now accounts for the lion's share of SAP product sales. At present, more than one million end users around the world work with the R/3 System.

The development of SAP products has continually benefited from major advances in the hardware sector. Back in 1972, the limited storage capacity of computers posed one of the biggest challenges. In those days, mainframes only had 500 kilobytes of storage capacity. Slow data input and output meant that only partial applications with a limited data volume were feasible. It was against this technological background that SAP signed its first customer, the German ICI subsidiary in Östringen.

With the successful implementation of its initial project, SAP had nine employees and, at the end of its first fiscal year, posted a profit on revenues of DM 620,000. In the second year of operation, two local businesses – the tobacco and cigarette manufacturer Roth-Händle and the pharmaceutical company Knoll - selected the newly developed SAP Financial Accounting (RF) System. This system quickly earned a reputation as an excellent standard package and installations expanded to 40 customers. But product development did not slow on this success, and a second standard product, the Materials Management (RM) System, with modules for purchasing, inventory management and invoice verification, soon followed. The benefits of SAP's integration philosophy showed through, with data from Materials Management flowing straight into Financial Accounting.