SAP aims to use the acquisition to bolster its education-related offerings.

“The workforce performance tools market has become increasingly strategic and critical to our customers’ success, and datango is a proven leader in this space,” said Markus Schwarz, SVP and global head of SAP Education. “By having its own product in this market, SAP can now deliver and accelerate innovations and produce robust content for our customers in the future.”

In an overview of the deal (pdf), datango says:

Certain datango employees related to this business are expected to join SAP following the completion of the transaction. datango will retain employees related to its KPS business (acquired from Enlight AB in 2007) and additional employees required to support and service existing client and partner agreements for the datango performance suite solution. The acquisition follows a successful partnership between datango and SAP in support of SAP’s Business ByDesign product.

Until closing, the datango business remains unchanged and continues as usual. You should expect to receive the same level of professional, courteous and knowledgeable assistance as you have always received from datango.

The deal, while subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close by the end of the quarter. Terms were not disclosed.

“Using location-based intelligence, customers can slice-and-dice large volumes of information against Google Maps/Earth to get a better understanding of the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of their business,” a representative for SAP tells WebProNews. “For example, with SAP StreamWork, a team of customer support representatives in a consumer packaged goods company could collaborate and pinpoint the location of consumer complaints within specific geographies and make a decision regarding how to address and prioritize resolution.

“We’re excited to work with SAP to help enterprise customers use Google’s cloud mapping tools with SAP software,” said Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise. “This integration will allow our customers to more easily visualize geographic data and make better business decisions.”

“Today, more and more information is being geo-tagged, and it is unlocking an entirely new dimension for enterprise data,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, Global Solutions at SAP. “SAP’s work with Google marries powerful enterprise software with the world’s most popular mapping platform to create entirely new ways for people to understand and interact with business information. We aim to provide our customers the opportunity to tap into the power of business analytics combined with location intelligence through a geographic view and use rich, interactive analytics to respond to events as they unfold in real time.”

Running down some examples of how organizations might be able to take advantage of the partnership between these two companies, SAP suggests that a telecom operator could use Google Earth and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to perform dropped-call analysis and pinpoint geo-coordinates of faulty towers. A state department of revenue might overlay household tax income info on a map and group it al the country level to track the highest/lowest tax bases. A mortgage bank might perform risk assessment on its portfolio by overlaying foreclosure and default data with the location of loans on Google Maps. You get the idea.

Oracle filed suit against SAP the Spring of 2007, after the company discovered TomorrowNow was accessing Oracle databases with former customer passwords and downloading proprietary information. TomorrowNow used the downloads to sell products to Oracle customers for half the price of what Oracle was charging. 

Here’s a snippet from our coverage in July of 2007, just after TomorrowNow admitted it had downloaded the files:

SAP is defending its subsidiary by saying that TN customers authorized them to download files on their behalf, a defense Eric Goldman calls the "proxy defense" that’s doomed to fail.<

"Oracle can control the manner and means by which people access its servers," writes Goldman, "so even if it permits its customers to access the site, that permission isn’t automatically extensible to third parties acting on the customers’ behalf. Indeed, Oracle expressly precluded such behavior in some cases."

According to Bloomberg, who broke the news:

The verdict, which came after one day of deliberations, is the biggest ever for copyright infringement and the largest U.S. jury award of 2010, according to Bloomberg data. The award is about equal to SAP’s forecasted net income for the fourth quarter, excluding some costs, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

SAP spokesman Bill Wohl said the German software maker will pursue all available options, including post-trial motions and will appeal if necessary. “This will unfortunately be a prolonged process and we continue to hope that the matter can be resolved appropriately without more years of litigation.”

Former SAP CEO Leo Apotheker is of course now running HP, which has created some turbulence between Oracle and HP this year.

"Léo is a strategic thinker with a passion for technology, wide-reaching global experience and proven operational discipline – exactly what we were looking for in a CEO," said Robert Ryan, lead independent director of HP’s Board. "After more than two decades in the industry, he has a strong track record of driving technological innovation, building customer relationships and developing world-class teams."

Ryan added, "Léo has been a leader in anticipating the transformation taking place in our industry, and we believe he is uniquely positioned to help accelerate HP’s strategy. He has demonstrated success in the U.S. market and also has vast international experience – which will be a major asset as HP continues to expand globally, particularly in high-growth emerging markets. HP has the right assets and market positions, and now we have the best team to realize the company’s enormous potential."

"HP has a powerful mix of businesses, products and services, one of the most innovative cultures in the industry, and an accomplished management team who have played a critical role in its success," said Apotheker. "I am deeply honored to be joining the more than 300,000 dedicated HP employees."

"Given HP’s diversified products and services, its financial strength, and its leadership position across markets, no other company is as well positioned to drive – and profit from – the revolutionary changes under way in the marketplace," he added. "As we move forward, HP will continue to be a valued partner with our customers as well as a fierce competitor. I look forward to working with the outstanding people at HP to write the next chapter in the company’s long and proud history."

HP’s Board also elected Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as a new member of the Board and designated him as non-executive Chairman. 

::Don’t like the format – it’s about open media, new media so have it free flowing. The beginning started with a ‘hold your questions’ type admonition, which is not the way it shoulda been.::

PR people do need to reach out to the bloggers in their space – a unanimous decision – because bloggers are looking for various and different stories than traditional journalists. And, some can be more interested and be more passionate about the subject rather than the trade journalist.

If a blogger follows journalistic standards, then you can deal with them the same way. But, it’s about knowing the people, the relationships. Treat them with respect – it’s a golden rule.

There are distinctions on bloggers – from professionals to semi-pros to amateurs. And, it’s a difference in outreach also. There’s IM versus email versus Facebook walls versus Twitter versus commenting on blogs (I view that as comment SPAM, though).

About sharing the stories, the good, bad and the indifferent. Cross-pollinating the stories, to the point of online and offline engagement.

Should there be a new PR person, or can the traditional PR people learn. Do there need to be specialized teams, or can the traditional teams need to be trained.

PR is everyone at the company’s responsibility – if you are an employee, you are in PR for the company whenever you are engaged in the public. There is a team for media relations, but we all have responsibilities in the public perception of the company.

Rachel Luxemburg also wrote on the panel.

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Oracle filed suit against SAP this past Spring, after the company discovered TN was accessing Oracle databases with former customer passwords and downloading proprietary information. TN used that information to provide the same level of service Oracle provided, at half the price.

SAP is defending its subsidiary by saying that TN customers authorized them to download files on their behalf, a defense Eric Goldman calls the "proxy defense" that’s doomed to fail.

"Oracle can control the manner and means by which people access its servers," writes Goldman, "so even if it permits its customers to access the site, that permission isn’t automatically extensible to third parties acting on the customers’ behalf. Indeed, Oracle expressly precluded such behavior in some cases."

SAP has been noticeably compliant with most of the claims even as it defends itself in court against the charges. The company set up a website about the lawsuit where those following the case can get information.

Though he wished he somebody’d called him before filing a lawsuit, Henning Kagermann, CEO, SAP AG, made his apologies. “Even a single inappropriate download is unacceptable from my perspective. We regret very much that this occurred,” he said.

“I want to reassure our investors, customers, partners and employees that SAP takes any departure from the high standards we set for all of our businesses very seriously, regardless of where it occurred or how confined it may be.

"When I learned what happened, I promptly took action to strengthen operational oversight at TomorrowNow while assuring that we maintain excellent service for TomorrowNow’s customers going forward.”

It may not turn out that well for them, though. TN is losing business already, SAP’s most likely going to have to write out a pretty big check to Oracle, and there’s a good possibility some suits are going to find themselves in jail.

This would certainly turn Project Fusion in to Confusion. Personally I don’t see how this would get passed the monopolies and merger’s commissions in the various countries affected and I think it’s more likely that Microsoft will take over SAP, although Jeff Nolan has some thoughts to the contrary.

Whatever the case, its looking more likely that Oracle will make a move to purchase another BI company as indicated in this article – Oracle Rumoured to be eyeing Business Objects. Great time to be an Oracle Consultant!!

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Richard Byrom is the founder and author of OracleAppsBlog, which documents the daily experiences and learnings of Oracle Applications Consultants and Implementors. He is also an Oracle Applications Consultant, Speaker and Author.

Ogilvy has previously worked with Cisco, IBM and SAP using blogs. The company will use the Technorati Conversational Marketing System to offer tools and strategies that will allow clients to syndicate content, participate in online conversation as well as build relationships with online communities that have a connection with their brands.

Ogilvy client Marianne Samenko, Director, VP, Brand Communications, Consumer Digital, Kodak, has expressed interest in Techorati’s services. “Technorati will help us understand what is going on in the blogosphere, which will be tremendously useful to our brand.”

The advantage Ogilvy clients will have by becoming involved in the blogosphere is the feedback they will receive concerning their products or services. Technorati VP of Marketing Derek Gordon compared it to a never-ending focus group.

“The voice of the customer is a vital and growing part of the marketing mix,” noted Carla Hendra, co-CEO of Ogilvy North America. “By partnering with Technorati, we can offer our clients an innovative engagement point with the Live Web. Key to this is defining measurable ways to integrate blogs and other citizen media on behalf of brands, and understanding how to listen and respond to the voice of each and every audience segment.”

While the partnership seems strong enough what will the blogosphere reaction be? As more marketers and companies move into the blogosphere will the original purpose of the blog be diminished?

On Ogilvy choosing to partner with Technorati Peter Hirshberg, Chairman and Chief marketing Officer at Technorati said, “Our Conversational Marketing System enables this game-changing method of audience engagement because we have a unique relationship with citizen publishers and our index of Live Web media is, frankly, unparalleled.”

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The Business Process Connectors for SAP systems supports for the dynamic integration between the application processes and server systems thus it facilitates in faster and efficient functioning of SAP R/3, SAP Portals and MySAP solutions. In the current model, SAP Business Connector Framework uses XML schemas for generating a JSP that can be assessed from any of the web browsers dynamically, so that one can test and deploy integration tools between the application server environment and SAP systems immediately. For the purpose of adding flexibility, convergence of XML schema approach to the SA Business Connector facilitates to all the SAP standards. Thereby the customers can leverage the power and flexibility of XML into their business documents with an improved efficiency and improved cost-effectiveness as well.

Integrating Business Connectors with XML

SAP BC combines both the RFC server and the client. Additionally it supplies an XML layer over R/3 functionality and also comes with XML automation since it has the ability in converting SAP’s RFC format into XML. There is no requirement of SAP R/3 automation at the receiving end since it supports both synchronous RFC and asynchronous RFC protocols.

Benefits of XML Integration:

End-to-End Web Business Processes

Internet bridges the gap between different businesses, systems and users and facilitates them to do business via web. SAP BC makes communication easier by its XML conversions. By means of integration with XML, it enables the exchange of structured business documents over the Internet by providing common standard for various applications together with IT systems for communing with each other and for exchanging business data.

Open Business Document Exchange over the Internet

SAP Business Connector uses hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) for exchanging XML-based documents over the Internet. Without the need of developing tool, it guarantees the security in replacing of documents in accordance with the help of its SSL (Security Socket Layer) technology. Additionally, SAP BC offers openness and flexibility for complying with emerging semantics of business that keep on changing frequently.

XML Solutions for SAP services

SAP BC makes all solutions to be accessible by means of XML based business documents and with the support of XML-based interface Repository (IFR) and empowers SAP customers to benefit from SAP functionality over the Internet, it helps all major existing interfaces that are being offered by SAP. This particular IFR gives the choice of downloading XML schemas and tenders a uniform XML interface representation despite different implementation technologies such as RFC, IDOC and BAPI. XML messages are easily translated into equivalent SAP internal call whenever you need and it gets converted back into XML format when received from SAP system thereby enhancing the existing programming model for distributed applications formed by ALE along with SAP BC.

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Ron Victor is a SEO copywriter for http://www.simplysap.com. He written many articles in various topics. For more information visit http://www.simplysap.com. Contact him at ron.seocopywriter@gmail.com

Consider that you are the implementation Project Manager for a consulting firm and you have a client who has selected an ERP system.

The project manager and the team started gathering requirements from end users through focus groups, workshops, sessions with SMEs, etc. After obtaining all the details from end users you can easily conclude that you have all the necessary information and requirements to successfully implement the “to be” software system erroneously. During UAT (User’s Acceptance Testing) you can find out that the system does not meet all the end user’s expectations as well as the participants of UAT are unable to authorize your implemented solution previously.

Requirements not scrubbed

Instead of focusing on what the requirement should process, it should focus only on the function that the system will perform. Government organizations implementing an ERP solution document requirements are maintained frequently in web of spreadsheets that makes it difficult to: 1. Track a requirement, 2. Modify the requirement while communicating the changes to the affected parties, 3. assigning requirement ownership, 4. Create an RTM and 5. Manage the lifecycle of the requirement. The ERP implementation partner is also tasked with interpreting the requirements from spreadsheets and it discerns how these requirements will be implemented during realization and verifies that the requirements have been met during testing process. Moreover, the implementation partner of ERP for the sake of meeting deadlines rushes through the blueprint phase does not scour the requirement and makes blind attempt for executing the requirement even when the requirement is not feasible, necessary or consistent with the functionality of the ERP application.

Vendor software problems

The process of testing or maintaining the SAP software will give you errors, and so the needed enhancements, or bugs within your software cannot be addressed with your existing project team and so these errors, bugs, and needed enhancements do not instigate from having customized or implemented SAP erroneously but are rather triggered due to a deficiency with the vendor software. Impact occurred to your business could be manifested in different manners such as client/end user dissatisfaction, inability to roll out specific planned system functionality, financial losses, and unstable system based upon the severity of the problem. These vendor software problems can also get unresolved for prolonged periods. Furthermore, lack of controls, participation from the SAP client as well as audit trails can cause the software vendor problems to erroneously become closed when in fact they were never resolved.

No Scope Verification

Controversial relationships between the client and implementation partner stem from the fact that the client feels that the implemented ERP solution does not cater to their business needs depending on the documented scope, and the end users cannot perform all these tasks that were implemented within the legacy systems without difficulty. And when the client report defects, short comings and bugs against the ERP system were not a part of the scope or documented via a requirement and so the problem is compounded. When the ERP integration partner labels the end user’s reported defects and problems as enhancements mutually rather than problems with the implemented ERP solution the relationship between the implementation partner and the client takes revolve for the worse.

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Ron Victor is a SEO copywriter for http://www.simplysap.com. He written many articles in various topics. For more information visit http://www.simplysap.com. Contact him at ron.seocopywriter@gmail.com