SAP Empowers Small Businesses to Thrive in Evolving Marketplace

by SAP AG

Enhancement Packages for SAP(R) Business One Meet Customer Needs for Quick Access to New Functionality and Maintenance Updates

In a continued display of its commitment to enabling small businesses to thrive in the fast-changing global marketplace, SAP AG today announced enhancement packages for SAP(R) Business One, a new series of downloadable packages as part of SAP standard support that provide SAP Business One customers with faster and more frequent access to new functionality, best practice tools and maintenance updates. The packages are planned for availability multiple times a year between major application updates in a model that dramatically shortens the industry's typical multiyear cycle for introducing new functionality down to a matter of months. With this model, SAP is setting the bar for a new breed of more nimble, adaptable and responsive small business applications. The announcement was made at the CeBIT trade fair, being held in Hanover, Germany, March 15 - 21.

Designed as actionable and incremental extensions to the SAP Business One application and compatible to the vast catalogue of 350 solutions developed by independent software vendors (ISVs), these enhancement packages activate in a "plug-and-play" manner, eliminating the costs and disruptions associated with typical software upgrades.

Highlights of SAP Business One Enhancement Packages

"Together with SAP, we can identify key customer concerns that require the turnaround of quick, effective solution extensions in an easy way," said Alexander Kirbis CEO of value added reseller KIRBIS. "As partners, we further benefit from the best practice components, allowing us to help customers streamline operations and realize additional value from SAP Business One."

SAP plans to make new enhancement packages for SAP Business One available for customers as part of their SAP standard maintenance contracts via download in regular cycles multiple times per year, offering:

• Enhanced features/functionality -- Incremental feature and functionality updates will provide fast response to emerging customer and market needs.



• Best practice tools -- Improved knowledge content will deliver access to best practices, toolkits and solution templates to assist partners and customers in smoother implementations, streamlined operations and better returns on IT investments.



• Maintenance updates -- Newly developed maintenance tools and solution patches will address complex business challenges, product fixes, compliance measures and security concerns.

The exact content of each forthcoming enhancement package will vary according to the actual needs and priorities of SAP Business One customers, as monitored by SAP and its channel partners. The first enhancement package is scheduled to be available for customers to download in the second quarter of 2007. Among the enhancements planned are several new capabilities in financials, including control accounts, general ledger reporting and document printing.

"Enhancement packages for SAP Business One allow small businesses to quickly obtain mission-critical business capabilities and increase overall solution value," said Gadi Shamia, senior vice president, Solution Management, Small Business Solutions, SAP. "This new approach to enhancement delivery denotes SAP Business One as the platform for future business innovation, while allowing us to respond faster to our customers and partners requests."

With this announcement, SAP Business One follows the path SAP has already taken for its large enterprise and mid-market customers (See related announcements, "SAP Delivers Innovation Without Disruption to mySAP(TM) ERP Customers" from September 12, 2006 and "SAP Delivers Enterprise SOA for Midsize Companies with Next Evolution of SAP(R) All-in-One Solutions" from January 16, 2007) by transforming the way SAP Business One customers deploy and consume new features and functionalities.