ORLANDO, Fla. – May 17, 2006 – SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the global availability of mySAP™ ERP 2005, the latest version of its renowned enterprise resource planning application. The new version of mySAP ERP features more than 300 product enhancements to provide companies with better information access and decision support, including role-based, intuitive work centers that enable users with a single click-to-action. The service-enablement of mySAP™ ERP 2005 provides greater openness and agility to extend process capabilities with applications from SAP or its family of ecosystem partners. Industry-specific functionality is now also fully embedded in the core ERP application, and customers who have licensed SAP industry solution portfolios delivered with mySAP ERP will benefit from more timely availability of industry-specific capabilities, as well as simplified configuration and administration. In addition, SAP demoed an early version of a new, modernized user interface called “Project Muse.” The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Flexible Platform with Greater Value
The latest version of mySAP ERP is a milestone release with advanced capabilities that deliver greater value to new and existing customers and provide a cost-effective, low risk and evolutionary path to the industry’s first service-enabled suite of enterprise applications. The new version of mySAP ERP enables customers to leverage its 300 available enterprise services, comprising the majority of the more than 500 productized enterprise services from mySAP™ Business Suite. SAP is service-enabling mySAP ERP to help customers innovate and adapt to changing industry requirements with greater speed and at lower cost than ever before. The widespread availability of the latest mySAP ERP application, built upon the SAP NetWeaver platform, provides a further realization of the SAP road map for enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), marking the first application that connects all operations through an intelligent foundation of cross-functional business processes, combining software applications with the underlying infrastructure for greater flexibility and fluid communications with customers and suppliers.

“For enterprises to respond to competitive challenges, they must be able to implement business changes on an ongoing basis, providing insight in an intuitive manner to its knowledge workers,” said Henry Morris, group vice president, IDC. “With its release of mySAP ERP 2005, SAP responds to these requirements with more extensive verticalization, better access to information and tangible progress towards its stated goal of adaptable, service-oriented software applications.”

New Options to Drive Information Worker Productivity
To support all ways that people work, SAP demonstrated an early version of a new SAP GUI, called “Project Muse,” that will provide a powerful new option for customers, and is one key element of SAP‘s effort to simplify the usage of SAP software while opening up its business processes to become ubiquitous and used through a variety of user experiences. This rich new user interface option delivers a simple, intuitive and highly interactive user experience, allowing users to access an SAP application directly from their Mac®, Linux or Windows® desktop and from integrated mobile devices and combines the benefits of a browser system (easy distribution of the SAP GUI over the Web) with benefits of rich clients (optimized network traffic and user interaction). SAP aims to make the new SAP GUI available to customers running mySAP Business Suite applications, delivering it with mySAP ERP 2005 in waves through a series of enhancement packages.

As announced on May 2, 2006, SAP and Microsoft have also delivered Duet™ software, a thought-leading software application that integrates the business processes and enterprise information driven by mySAP ERP with the Microsoft Office System. By leveraging the business environment of Microsoft Office, employees realize a seamless experience between Microsoft and mySAP ERP applications. Along with self-service capabilities, pre-configured, role-based work centers and SAP® xApps™ composite applications for analytics provided with mySAP ERP 2005, SAP’s innovative approach allows business users to connect to SAP applications in unprecedented ways-and through the user interface that is most well-suited to their unique requirements.

Rapid Customer Adoption of mySAP ERP
SAP dedicated significant effort in the creation of mySAP ERP 2005 to the simplification and acceleration of ERP upgrades at customer sites. Upgrades from SAP® R/3® to mySAP ERP have been completed at unprecedented speed while customers start using mySAP ERP 2005 as the key milestone as part of their own ESA road maps.

“Orange County Public Schools hires more than 2,000 employees each year and needed a solution that would change the way we do business, improving how the administration recruits talented teachers and hires qualified staff,” said Charles Thompson, chief information officer, Orange County Public Schools. “As an existing SAP customer, Orange County turned to the latest version of mySAP ERP because its e-recruiting capabilities will help automate steps in the recruiting process, giving the school district visibility into candidates and allowing hiring managers to post job descriptions.”

“The move to mySAP ERP provides us with a strong foundation for excellence in our core business functions and supports our overall growth strategy as we continue to expand internationally,” said Guillaume Bruyneel CIO at Dexxon Group Holding. “We completed our ERP migration on time and budget, and are now up and running with robust applications and technology that help improve our financial supply chain processes, enhance visibility for our managers and streamline sales and contract flow with our customers. The new architecture of mySAP ERP allows us to collaborate more effectively and operate more flexibly at a lower overall cost.”

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 17, 2006 – SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the launch of a $125 million global fund to accelerate the ecosystem of independent software vendors (ISVs) building next-generation composite applications on the SAP NetWeaver® platform. With more than 1,500 “Powered by SAP NetWeaver®” solutions and more than 1,000 ISVs actively developing on the SAP NetWeaver platform, the SAP NetWeaver Fund will focus on strategic investments in select companies committed to becoming part of the SAP ecosystem and building innovative solutions based on enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA). The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

SAP cited the rapid progression of ISV innovation building on SAP NetWeaver had inspired the company to leverage its financial resources to further stimulate a market which had already indicated strong endorsement of the SAP ecosystem strategy and of SAP NetWeaver as the market-leading innovation platform. At the same time, the SAP NetWeaver Fund provides a new opportunity for SAP to focus its investments into taking a funding leadership position with up-and-coming companies that have committed to building their products on the SAP NetWeaver platform.

“SAP firmly believes in the power of co-innovation and, today-with the formation of the SAP NetWeaver Fund-we have taken another step forward to extend our lead in cultivating a world-class ecosystem and, ultimately, expanding the options available to customers,” said Shai Agassi, president of the Product & Technology Group and executive board member at SAP.

Financed out of SAP’s corporate development funds, the SAP NetWeaver Fund will be managed jointly by Zia Yusuf, executive vice president of platform ecosystem at SAP, and Jim Mackey, senior vice president of corporate finance at SAP.

“The formation of the SAP NetWeaver Fund further expands the SAP investment toolkit and complements the efforts of SAP Ventures,” said Werner Brandt, chief financial officer and executive board member, SAP AG. “Building on the widespread adoption of the SAP NetWeaver platform, the establishment of the SAP NetWeaver Fund further underscores our dedication to co-innovation and driving real customer value.”

SAP will continue to leverage its venture arm, SAP Ventures, which primarily invests in emerging technology that combines large market potential with high growth opportunity. These investments are designed to create positive financial returns to SAP, while, at the same time, creating seed innovation that supports SAP and the needs of customers and the marketplace.

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 17, 2006 – SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the launch of a $125 million global fund to accelerate the ecosystem of independent software vendors (ISVs) building next-generation composite applications on the SAP NetWeaver® platform. With more than 1,500 “Powered by SAP NetWeaver®” solutions and more than 1,000 ISVs actively developing on the SAP NetWeaver platform, the SAP NetWeaver Fund will focus on strategic investments in select companies committed to becoming part of the SAP ecosystem and building innovative solutions based on enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA). The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

SAP cited the rapid progression of ISV innovation building on SAP NetWeaver had inspired the company to leverage its financial resources to further stimulate a market which had already indicated strong endorsement of the SAP ecosystem strategy and of SAP NetWeaver as the market-leading innovation platform. At the same time, the SAP NetWeaver Fund provides a new opportunity for SAP to focus its investments into taking a funding leadership position with up-and-coming companies that have committed to building their products on the SAP NetWeaver platform.

“SAP firmly believes in the power of co-innovation and, today-with the formation of the SAP NetWeaver Fund-we have taken another step forward to extend our lead in cultivating a world-class ecosystem and, ultimately, expanding the options available to customers,” said Shai Agassi, president of the Product & Technology Group and executive board member at SAP.

Financed out of SAP’s corporate development funds, the SAP NetWeaver Fund will be managed jointly by Zia Yusuf, executive vice president of platform ecosystem at SAP, and Jim Mackey, senior vice president of corporate finance at SAP.

“The formation of the SAP NetWeaver Fund further expands the SAP investment toolkit and complements the efforts of SAP Ventures,” said Werner Brandt, chief financial officer and executive board member, SAP AG. “Building on the widespread adoption of the SAP NetWeaver platform, the establishment of the SAP NetWeaver Fund further underscores our dedication to co-innovation and driving real customer value.”

SAP will continue to leverage its venture arm, SAP Ventures, which primarily invests in emerging technology that combines large market potential with high growth opportunity. These investments are designed to create positive financial returns to SAP, while, at the same time, creating seed innovation that supports SAP and the needs of customers and the marketplace.

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 17, 2006 – As continuing evidence of its leadership in helping customers achieve accelerated business process innovation, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced it is the first to deliver standards-based, productized enterprise services as part of its platform. Organizations will have the ability to leverage the powerful combination of the integration and composition capabilities of the SAP NetWeaver® platform along with the industry’s first productized enterprise services-Web services that provide defined business logic-for a faster, more flexible way to adapt and innovate their business processes. SAP aims to make the 500 services available in June 2006 with the latest release of SAP NetWeaver and mySAP Business Suite. Customers will also be able to access and evaluate these services at the enterprise services workplace available to all on the SAP Software Developer Network. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Leading organizations today are seeking increased agility through business process flexibility to anticipate changing business requirements more quickly. Enterprise services are the essential building blocks for this business process flexibility as they provide reusable pieces of application functionality that can be rapidly composed to form new or enhanced business processes. Based on widely accepted service-oriented architecture (SOA) standards, enterprise services represent a common business language that help customers increase the ease and speed at which they can be composed to support evolving business strategies and maintain the integrity of business processes. SAP will make these enterprise services available with SAP® applications running on the SAP NetWeaver composition platform as critical ingredients to help companies align around an enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA). Enterprise SOA is defined by SAP as SOA plus enterprise services-moving SOA from a simple standard to an architecture that drives real business value.

“As enterprise customers demand business agility in their new applications software, vendors are responding by embracing service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM). The result will be enterprise applications unlike any previous generation,” writes John Rymer in the April 2006 Forrester Research report ‘Oracle Versus SAP In Enterprise Applications: Let The Battle Of Architectures Begin!’. “SAP has strong market momentum, well articulated value for next-generation applications and a strong partnership strategy.”

The new productized enterprise services pertain to common business functions such as financials, human capital management, procurement and logistics execution, product development and manufacturing, sales and service, corporate services and analytics. This allows easy composition of services to be completed by independent software vendors (ISVs), systems integrators (SIs), customers and SAP.

“Traditional IT platforms make the rapid development of flexible IT services nearly impossible,” said Shai Agassi, president of the Product and Technology Group and executive board member, SAP AG. “While Web services and SOAs are helping customers move in the right direction, the real innovation is happening with the business-level building blocks that combine the benefits of Web services with business semantics that ensures business process integrity. SAP is leading this industry effort with its business-driven software architecture for services-based, enterprise-scale solutions. The delivery of 500 productized enterprise services is a critical step for customers who are eager to implement open and flexible business process strategies.”

With today’s announcement, SAP is also unveiling the enterprise services workplace, an enterprise SOA exploration tool available on the SAP® Developer Network (https://www.sdn.sap.com). The workplace features the new 500 enterprise services and serves as a hosted environment for partners, developers and customers to collaborate on the definition and direction of enterprise services that will help companies run their most prevalent business processes in new, more effective ways. The enterprise services workplace is the next evolutionary step of the enterprise services architecture preview system introduced last year. (See the April 26, 2005 press release, titled “SAP Previews More than 500 Enterprise Services.”)

SAP NetWeaver is the leading platform in the market today, continually evolving to offer a wide range of benefits including enabling more flexible business strategies, accelerating innovation and growth and driving greater overall IT and business value. The latest release builds on strong customer adoption with more than 31,000 deployments of SAP NetWeaver components, with more than 6,800 customers worldwide having chosen SAP NetWeaver as their strategic platform.

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 17, 2006 – As continuing evidence of its leadership in helping customers achieve accelerated business process innovation, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced it is the first to deliver standards-based, productized enterprise services as part of its platform. Organizations will have the ability to leverage the powerful combination of the integration and composition capabilities of the SAP NetWeaver® platform along with the industry’s first productized enterprise services-Web services that provide defined business logic-for a faster, more flexible way to adapt and innovate their business processes. SAP aims to make the 500 services available in June 2006 with the latest release of SAP NetWeaver and mySAP Business Suite. Customers will also be able to access and evaluate these services at the enterprise services workplace available to all on the SAP Software Developer Network. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Leading organizations today are seeking increased agility through business process flexibility to anticipate changing business requirements more quickly. Enterprise services are the essential building blocks for this business process flexibility as they provide reusable pieces of application functionality that can be rapidly composed to form new or enhanced business processes. Based on widely accepted service-oriented architecture (SOA) standards, enterprise services represent a common business language that help customers increase the ease and speed at which they can be composed to support evolving business strategies and maintain the integrity of business processes. SAP will make these enterprise services available with SAP® applications running on the SAP NetWeaver composition platform as critical ingredients to help companies align around an enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA). Enterprise SOA is defined by SAP as SOA plus enterprise services-moving SOA from a simple standard to an architecture that drives real business value.

“As enterprise customers demand business agility in their new applications software, vendors are responding by embracing service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM). The result will be enterprise applications unlike any previous generation,” writes John Rymer in the April 2006 Forrester Research report ‘Oracle Versus SAP In Enterprise Applications: Let The Battle Of Architectures Begin!’. “SAP has strong market momentum, well articulated value for next-generation applications and a strong partnership strategy.”

The new productized enterprise services pertain to common business functions such as financials, human capital management, procurement and logistics execution, product development and manufacturing, sales and service, corporate services and analytics. This allows easy composition of services to be completed by independent software vendors (ISVs), systems integrators (SIs), customers and SAP.

“Traditional IT platforms make the rapid development of flexible IT services nearly impossible,” said Shai Agassi, president of the Product and Technology Group and executive board member, SAP AG. “While Web services and SOAs are helping customers move in the right direction, the real innovation is happening with the business-level building blocks that combine the benefits of Web services with business semantics that ensures business process integrity. SAP is leading this industry effort with its business-driven software architecture for services-based, enterprise-scale solutions. The delivery of 500 productized enterprise services is a critical step for customers who are eager to implement open and flexible business process strategies.”

With today’s announcement, SAP is also unveiling the enterprise services workplace, an enterprise SOA exploration tool available on the SAP® Developer Network (https://www.sdn.sap.com). The workplace features the new 500 enterprise services and serves as a hosted environment for partners, developers and customers to collaborate on the definition and direction of enterprise services that will help companies run their most prevalent business processes in new, more effective ways. The enterprise services workplace is the next evolutionary step of the enterprise services architecture preview system introduced last year. (See the April 26, 2005 press release, titled “SAP Previews More than 500 Enterprise Services.”)

SAP NetWeaver is the leading platform in the market today, continually evolving to offer a wide range of benefits including enabling more flexible business strategies, accelerating innovation and growth and driving greater overall IT and business value. The latest release builds on strong customer adoption with more than 31,000 deployments of SAP NetWeaver components, with more than 6,800 customers worldwide having chosen SAP NetWeaver as their strategic platform.

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 17, 2006 – Recognizing the value customers gain by having a fast on-ramp for sourcing, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it is acquiring Frictionless® Commerce, a privately-held, leading provider of supplier relationship management (SRM) software. Through the addition of Frictionless Commerce, SAP will be able to help customers act quickly and save strategically while also providing a seamless and easy migration to the proven and robust mySAP™ SRM. Acquiring Frictionless Commerce extends the value of SAP® applications, representing a key component of the company’s strategy to offer the preferred global purchasing platform for organizations of all sizes and across all industries. The announcement was made today at the onset of SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18. Terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Frictionless Commerce serves large and midsize enterprises across an array of vertical markets, including banking, insurance, professional services, consumer products, discrete manufacturing, life sciences, telecommunications and utilities. The transaction with Frictionless Commerce is consistent with SAP’s strategy to use targeted, fill-in acquisitions that add superior functionality to its broad solution portfolio while continuing to grow its business organically.

With globalization and increasing cost pressures, companies need to take a strategic approach to managing suppliers. With this acquisition, SAP will combine the proven e-Sourcing capabilities of Frictionless with the robustness of SAP applications, including mySAP Supplier Relationship Management. As “Powered by SAP NetWeaver®” solutions, Frictionless products are fully compatible with SAP applications, minimizing product integration concerns and assuring a seamless solution road map as customer requirements grow.

“Frictionless Commerce’s vision included offering complete, real-time interoperability with SAP solutions,” said Mary Cotton, president and CEO, Frictionless Commerce. “With this announcement, we carry on this vision while immediately opening up our offerings to a larger number of entities. Customers can quickly benefit from the capabilities that Frictionless delivers while complementing their investments in SAP applications to manage their enterprises.”

Frictionless Commerce’s On-Demand edition offers e-Sourcing capabilities available through a Web browser. Within days, organizations can run sourcing events and begin managing suppliers. The On-Demand edition offers a faster time-to-benefit, as well as measurable cost savings with a minimal investment in time, resources and training.

“With today’s announcement, SAP continues its extension of mySAP Supplier Relationship Management to include an on-demand option for e-Sourcing,” said Shai Agassi, president of the Product & Technology Group and executive board member, SAP AG. “Sourcing on-demand offers customers a fast and consistent way to automate labor-intensive negotiations. Because Frictionless Commerce software is ‘Powered by SAP NetWeaver’ certified, integration with SAP applications already exists, making this a quick win for our customers. We extend a warm welcome to Frictionless Commerce’s employees and partners.”

SAP anticipates that the acquisition will be completed in July 2006. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Frictionless Commerce employs approximately 70 people and has an additional office in London, England. SAP said that it intends to continue operations in these offices. The company said it would provide additional details about the integration upon the closing of the transaction.

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 16, 2006 – SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) today announced the formation of four new “industry value networks” (IVNs) serving the consumer products, retail and technology industries and the public sector. Driven heavily by customer participation and SAP’s deep industry expertise, these networks bring together customers, partners and SAP to co-innovate and quickly develop solutions to solve industry-specific customer challenges. The solutions developed through these IVNs will leverage the SAP NetWeaver® platform to create end-to-end business solutions while avoiding costly integration projects between software from partners and SAP solutions through the usage of enterprise services. The end result will enable customers to extend and enrich their investments in SAP® solutions, helping optimize asset utilization and lower IT investment risk. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

“At SAP, we believe that a vibrant ecosystem of partners, customers and SAP can deliver more innovation than any single company,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe, general manager, Industry Solutions, SAP. “SAP is creating such a trusted ecosystem by focusing a group of companies to invest in co-innovation with the largest enterprise applications customer community. The expansion of our IVN initiative will allow customers in the public sector and consumer products, high technology and retail industries to benefit from our valuable partner ecosystem to help accelerate innovation and productivity.”

For partners, IVNs represent a significant opportunity and the logical next step for independent software vendors (ISVs) and system integrators (SIs) who have built solutions that are certified as “Powered by SAP NetWeaver®” and have a strong need to create a vertical focus in their business. Customer and partner IVN members may also participate in SAP’s newly launched Enterprise Services Community, helping ensure that enterprise services relevant for the industry are properly defined and become a basis for future software development resulting from collaboration within the IVN, such as for SAP® xApp™ composite applications.

“Well structured partner networks can provide vendors with significant benefits over traditional relationship models,” said Stephen Graham, group vice president, Global Software Business Strategies at IDC. “SAP’s industry value network provides an important foundation for a new type of engagement model involving customers, services firms and technology vendors.”

Currently, SAP has value networks covering six industries, including banking and, most recently, chemicals. SAP plans to expand this initiative to additional industries throughout the year.

IVN for Consumer Products
Members of SAP’s IVN for consumer products will collaborate to deliver solutions and integration scenarios to address key industry issues, including compliance, food safety, meat tracking, and wine and spirits management.

Food safety is one of the most important regulatory compliance topics in the consumer products industry. Due to a lack of supply chain visibility at certain points in the harvesting process, a significant percentage of fresh crops often deteriorates after harvest, leading to billions of dollars in annual losses. Corporate losses resulting from recalls can amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per incident. Additionally, losses due to counterfeited food products are rising to upwards of tens of billions dollars each year. To address these issues, TraceTracker, a provider of software to facilitate the complete documentation and tracing of food products from ‘fork-to-farm,’ has joined the consumer products IVN to bring customers a comprehensive offering to support global traceability for regulatory compliance, improved food safety and brand protection.

“SAP has what it takes to be the perfect partner, especially for the type of disruptive technology TraceTracker offers,” said Knut Jørstad, president and founder of TraceTracker. “SAP is a truly global enterprise, with the right dynamics and view of corporate social responsibility that continued globalization requires. We have a strong relationship with SAP and work closely with our partners in the Consumer Products industry business unit at SAP. Together, we are creating great solutions that address our customers’ need for global coordination of corporate information.”

In addition to TraceTracker, companies including Conformia, Invensys, OR Soft, SmartOps, Softproviding.net and Vistex are among the initial partner members of the consumer products IVN.

IVN for High Tech
To address the specific needs of high-tech manufacturers, members of the high-tech IVN are initially collaborating to develop solutions around manufacturing execution, product compliance, price management and service parts management.

Manufacturing execution, for example, is a business issue for high-tech companies given the level of outsourcing and offshoring of supply chain operations. High-tech manufacturers often lack the capability to sense and respond to changes on the manufacturing floor. To address this challenge, Visiprise has collaborated with the high-tech IVN to develop a “Powered by NetWeaver” solution that increases perfect order fulfillment by providing shop floor event notification and work-in-progress traceability through manufacturing performance-management dashboards.

“We have a considerable number of shared customers in the high-tech market ranging from OEM, contract and medical device manufacturers,” said Sean McCloskey, chief executive officer of Visiprise. “Providing an end-to-end solution for high-tech manufacturing is exactly what our customers have been requesting.”

In addition to Visiprise, other partner members of the high-tech IVN include Accenture, Bristlecone, MCA Solutions, Technidata and Vendavo. Additional members are being recruited to develop solutions for other high-tech business processes.

IVN for Public Sector
Members of SAP’s IVN for public sector will focus on developing solutions to help governments and public agencies and organizations transform tax and revenue management processes by addressing key pain points such as outdated legacy systems, lack of current tax solutions being integrated with other systems, and growing demand from citizens for high-performance services. As public sector organizations around the world move away from costly legacy and custom-built systems, they are looking for flexible integrated solutions that will allow them to adapt their environments to comply with changing tax rules and laws.

The IVN community working on the tax and revenue management issue include, Accenture, BearingPoint, Deloitte, EAI, ESRI, Hewlett-Packard, iLog, Realtime, RuleBurst, TATIS, and WindStar. This group will also focus on developing solutions to help customers address issues with collections management, border management, rules and regulations, integrated tax, analytics and property tax management.

RuleBurst-an Australian-owned, global company that provides software solutions for the administration of complex business rule-has joined the public sector IVN to develop a composite application that helps public sector customers automate rules processing to manage complex business rules and regulations.

“By choosing an SAP solution for tax and revenue management, a customer benefits from SAP’s extensive experience building enterprise solutions for the largest government agencies,” said Surend Dayal, CEO of RuleBurst Limited. “RuleBurst allows those agencies’ business and policy experts to rapidly extend SAP’s business processes and to change system behaviors quickly as legislation, regulations and government policy evolve. Together, SAP and RuleBurst provide an unbeatable combination: highly agile applications that automate business processes while enabling staff to make accurate, consistent and auditable decisions.”

Accenture has also joined the public sector IVN to develop an SAP xApp and services to help tax agencies to address complex revenue challenges. The solution integrates all of the functional components of a tax management program, including taxpayer accounting, correspondence, case management, contact management, business intelligence and revenue accounting. Built on SAP applications for tax and revenue management, the Accenture Rapid Revenue Solution combines Accenture’s deep tax and revenue industry understanding-based on more than 20 integrated tax implementations around the world-with SAP experience from more than 1,600 projects worldwide.

“Today, high performance for tax agencies means aligning technology and business solutions with strategic planning to provide better service and increased collections while maintaining operation costs,” said Ann Rettie, managing director, Revenue and Customs, Accenture. “The Accenture Rapid Revenue Solution delivers increased benefits to users while reducing costs and lowering risk for agencies. Accenture is pleased to be part of the IVN for public sector, working jointly with SAP, our customers and ISVs to enable co-innovation and to deliver complete industry solutions for tax and revenue agencies on an open platform.”

“Deloitte is pleased to continue its long-standing relationship with SAP as a charter member of the IVN,” said Alan Krasner, principal, Deloitte Consulting. “SAP and Deloitte have worked together on the tax and revenue management solution since 1999, with the pilot implementation at the Florida Department of Revenue. Based on the Department of Revenue strategy of leveraging the tax and revenue management solution, including business warehouse and CRM components, annual benefits now exceed the Department of Revenue operating budget. The IVN will provide a vehicle for SAP to solidify its position as the most comprehensive commercial off-the-shelf solution in this market.”

IVN for Retail
Members of the IVN for the retail industry are working together to develop solutions to address key industry issues around store and multi-channel management. Specific focus areas include integration with point-of-sale solutions; connectivity for mobile devices such as handhelds and kiosks; customer loyalty programs; and customer analytics.

The IVN for retail is collaborating with HP to ensure the timely, relevant and reliable delivery of business information, such as promotion and pricing information, from retail headquarters to the store level.

“Accurate information is critical to retailers as they address the problems of customer intimacy, satisfaction and convenience,” said Gayle Papadopoulos, vice president and general manager, worldwide retail solutions, HP. “HP is proud to join the SAP industry value network for retail and offer the entire portfolio of HP products and solutions, including output management solutions, digital media and imaging solutions, wireless and handheld technology, and world-class HP hardware and services to retailers across the globe.”

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 16, 2006 – Continuing its strong track record of providing retail customers of all sizes around the world with best-in-class business software, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE: CHS), one of the fastest growing specialty retailers in the world, will implement SAP® for Retail to support its aggressive growth strategy. With integrated applications for merchandising, finance, procurement, supply chain management and product life-cycle management, SAP’s retail solution portfolio will help Chico’s gain an unified view across its multi-branded enterprise. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Operating nearly 800 stores in 47 states in the United States, Chico’s has been very successful with its traditional business model of selling exclusively designed, private-label clothing and related accessories. As Chico’s looks to continue its strong growth-whether it decides to do so organically through same-store sales and new store sales, by way of acquisition or through introducing new brands to the market-the retailer requires a flexible infrastructure that can scale as it grows.

Chico’s will adopt the SAP NetWeaver® platform as the strategic foundation of its system, allowing the company to consolidate various disparate legacy systems onto a single, integrated platform. SAP for Retail will provide Chico’s with comprehensive, real-time performance metrics combined with powerful planning capabilities designed to help retailers react quickly to changing market trends and customer demands.

Chico’s conducted a thorough investigation and concluded that SAP for Retail was the best option to support its business and IT objectives.

“SAP understands retail and has demonstrated a strong commitment to our success,” said Scott A. Edmonds, president and chief executive officer, Chico’s FAS, Inc. “Chico’s plans to utilize SAP for Retail to create a flexible business process platform for Chico’s and to provide a key support for our growth into the next decade.”

“SAP is honored to partner with one of the premier names in retail and the envy of the industry with its robust growth and customer-focused business model,” said Bill McDermott, president and CEO, SAP Americas. “Our companies share much of the same commitment to our customers, and we look forward to building a strong relationship with Chico’s and to helping Chico’s realize its goals and continue to execute on its mission of providing excellent personalized service and a unique retail environment.”

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 16, 2006 – Continuing its strong track record of providing retail customers of all sizes around the world with best-in-class business software, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE: CHS), one of the fastest growing specialty retailers in the world, will implement SAP® for Retail to support its aggressive growth strategy. With integrated applications for merchandising, finance, procurement, supply chain management and product life-cycle management, SAP’s retail solution portfolio will help Chico’s gain an unified view across its multi-branded enterprise. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Operating nearly 800 stores in 47 states in the United States, Chico’s has been very successful with its traditional business model of selling exclusively designed, private-label clothing and related accessories. As Chico’s looks to continue its strong growth-whether it decides to do so organically through same-store sales and new store sales, by way of acquisition or through introducing new brands to the market-the retailer requires a flexible infrastructure that can scale as it grows.

Chico’s will adopt the SAP NetWeaver® platform as the strategic foundation of its system, allowing the company to consolidate various disparate legacy systems onto a single, integrated platform. SAP for Retail will provide Chico’s with comprehensive, real-time performance metrics combined with powerful planning capabilities designed to help retailers react quickly to changing market trends and customer demands.

Chico’s conducted a thorough investigation and concluded that SAP for Retail was the best option to support its business and IT objectives.

“SAP understands retail and has demonstrated a strong commitment to our success,” said Scott A. Edmonds, president and chief executive officer, Chico’s FAS, Inc. “Chico’s plans to utilize SAP for Retail to create a flexible business process platform for Chico’s and to provide a key support for our growth into the next decade.”

“SAP is honored to partner with one of the premier names in retail and the envy of the industry with its robust growth and customer-focused business model,” said Bill McDermott, president and CEO, SAP Americas. “Our companies share much of the same commitment to our customers, and we look forward to building a strong relationship with Chico’s and to helping Chico’s realize its goals and continue to execute on its mission of providing excellent personalized service and a unique retail environment.”

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 16, 2006 – Demonstrating its growth in providing solutions for small business and ability to serve enterprises of all sizes, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Gary Player, XtremeMac and Ron Jon surf shop-three of Florida’s best-known small companies-are leveraging SAP® Business One as a platform for more efficient operations and sustainable growth. Working with SAP’s local channel partner Netsirk Technologies, based in Sunrise, Florida, the three companies are deploying SAP Business One to power their businesses as they expand into international operations, meet increasing customer and supplier demands and experience exceptional growth. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ‘06, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 16-18.

Gary Player, XtremeMac and Ron Jon are taking advantage of the integrated business management capabilities of SAP Business One to gain better visibility and insight across their entire operations, including financials, manufacturing and customer relationship management. The three customers are among nearly 10,000 small and midsize enterprises worldwide that have selected SAP Business One in the three years since its introduction to market.

“Small and midsize businesses are widely recognized growth engines for the local and national economy, and SAP is pleased to count three of Florida’s most well-known and respected companies among the ever-growing list of customers that are becoming best-run businesses with SAP,” said Bill McDermott, president & CEO, SAP Americas. “Together with our partners, we are delivering tools and expertise so that companies of all sizes can compete effectively, expand their business and realize their goals for profitability and growth.”

Gary Player Groups: A Hole in One with SAP Business One
Founded by Gary Player, a living legend of golf who has won nine PGA Grand Slams and nine major Senior PGA Championships, Gary Player Group is company with global operations yet a small number of employees. Unable to get a single view of its financial information across multiple markets with the ACCPAC application it was running, the company selected SAP Business One to achieve a consolidated financial world view, leverage multi-currency and multi-language capabilities and gain greater control over its operations.

“SAP Business One supports our mission to be a dynamic and competitive multi-national force within the leisure industry,” said Marc Player, CEO, Gary Player Group. “SAP and NetSirk have delivered an application with a consistent format for use in markets across the world and an easy-to-use alert system that zeroes in on the most important aspects of our business and allows us to make critical decisions while we can still influence the outcomes.”

XtremeMac Manages Phenomenal Growth with SAP Business One
One of the first manufacturers of iPod accessories, Weston, Florida-based XtremeMac has grown tremendously since starting out in a residential garage as its original office in 2002. With annual revenues increasing more than tenfold in three short years and ever rising demand for its products, executives at the company quickly realized the inadequacy of accounting software for providing an overview of the entire business across financial, inventory, order and customer relationship management activities. Deploying SAP Business One to replace QuickBooks in 2005, the company quickly increased its use of the SAP software from an initial 10 users to 35 users to meet the growth in its employee base. XtremeMac is now poised to implement seamlessly integrated solution extensions for warehouse management, electronic data interchange (EDI) and e-commerce as it serves the nation’s leading retailers including The Apple Store, Target, Best Buy and Radio Shack.

“Before SAP Business One, we were working from spreadsheets, and although we managed to keep up with increasing demand, our order process was disjointed and it was difficult to determine if we had inventory to meet an order,” said Gary Bart, CEO, XtremeMac. “We expect SAP to be able to accommodate our growth and allow us to track orders against inventory as well as introduce new capabilities as we add retailers to our distribution network.”

Surf’s up for Ron Jon
Throughout its forty-plus years of operation, the legendary Ron Jon Surf Shop has redefined surfing culture through an evolving variety of surfboards, surf wear and other beach-related merchandise. With the scope of operations reaching six retail stores nationwide and several related business ventures, the Cocoa Beach, Florida-based company has selected SAP Business One to consolidate warehouse management, e-commerce, inventory and pricing processes for improved operational control and enhanced business decision-making. Using the SAP application, Ron Jon aims to refine its tracking and reporting of inventory while streamlining the product cycle from the warehouse to the point of sale. Ron Jon further plans to refine internal reporting, employing analytics and reporting capabilities from SAP to better manage purchasing and merchandise pricing levels.

“As a well-recognized brand in a lifestyle industry, we require a business management application to streamline our sales and merchandising processes and fully capitalize on our long-term growth prospects,” said Ed Moriarty, president, Ron Jon Surf Shop. “As we look to open several new stores and expand our online presence over the next few years, SAP and Netsirk will deliver newfound flexibility and operational visibility by uniting our systems with our sales floor through a single, integrated application.”