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SAP Unveils Comprehensive SOA Service and Support Offering

BERLIN, May 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has delivered a complete accompaniment of service-oriented architecture (SOA) technologies, ready-to-run services and comprehensive support offerings to help companies achieve additional business value and increased IT efficiencies. With SOA as the de facto market standard and mass adoption underway, customers can turn to SAP for a simplified, comprehensive option for executing a sound SOA strategy that delivers rapid value. The breadth of offerings from SAP addresses the full lifecycle of SOA projects -- from development to deployment and ongoing management -- making the transition to SOA easy and affordable. By taking advantage of hands-on guidance through SAP's methodology, customers can accelerate business network transformation. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE(R) 2008, SAP's international customer conference, being held inBerlin, Germany, May 19 - 21.

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Small, midsize and large enterprises around the world face the need to drive a more global approach to business, manage faster transformational changes in market conditions and cope with increased customer power in networked economies. As a result, companies are continually looking for ways to innovate business processes while reducing the amount of expense, time and effort associated with driving the operation of their business. Companies need a comprehensive architecture that is based on an open platform to govern their IT landscape in order to enable change, and are increasingly adopting enterprise SOA to fill those needs. Enterprise SOA, SAP's approach to SOA, focuses on easily linking stand-alone standard processes to quickly compose new end-to-end processes. In addition, the approach selectively redesigns existing processes to make rapid changes and facilitate seamless design across company boundaries to include business partners.

"SAP's approach to SOA has enabled Offentliche to improve customer management for further growth, as well as made us more efficient and effective," said Dennis Lidzba, managing director IT, Offentliche Insurance (Versicherung Braunschweig). "Through the use of Web services, we are able to provide our customers with online processes and our partners with an online environment where interfacing with different systems is flexible."

End-to-End Professional Services for Scalable Business Solutions

The set of innovative professional services and tools offered by SAP ensures customers have the ability to complete their SOA road maps and move forward on projects, maximizing success at every step. The professional service portfolio from SAP covers all phases of a company's transition to SOA -- from initial exploration to training end users to take advantage of newly introduced functionality. The portfolio includes:

    --  Starter Kit for Enterprise SOA -- Released recently, the starter kit
        for enterprise SOA provides step-by-step guidance for initial SOA
        projects with knowledge building blocks including content focused on
        value and benefits, architecture, governance, composition of services
        and ongoing operations. In addition, the kit contains a methodology
        for project managers and hands-on developer guidance. To learn from
        other user experiences, references and customer cases are included as
        well. This kit is available at no cost to customers via the SAP
        Developer Network site (sap.sdn.com --
        https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/enterprisesoa).
    --  Methodology for Accelerated Transformation to Enterprise SOA -- The
        methodology accelerates the transformation to SOA by helping
        consultants, partners and customers implement service-based solutions.
        The methodology supports and accelerates the transformation of
        customer IT landscapes into an enterprise service-based architecture,
        consolidates existing approaches and provides end-to-end guidance
        throughout the entire transformation process with a single procedural
        model.
    --  Packaged Composite Implementations -- Providing customers with
        value-add SOA offerings that address specific business problems, each
        offering comes as a packaged SOA project, including a composite
        application, relevant productized services and comprehensive
        documentation. These offerings ensure faster time to value and are
        ideal to leverage the benefits of SOA.
    --  Value Prototyping -- Provides a comprehensive high-speed collaboration
        platform to create custom-tailored prototypes. This service comprises
        a one-stop shop, combining business, industry, solution and technology
        skills into a holistic approach to outline and bring to life
        customer-specific SOA value.

SAP Consulting, Custom Development and Education Maximize Customer Success

Customization is a primary characteristic of SOA projects. Through a combination of offerings from the SAP Custom Development and SAP Education organizations, customers can leverage existing investments and accelerate value gains in their business as they develop composite solutions that differentiate themselves in the marketplace. SAP's offerings address the full lifecycle of an SOA strategy to best position the project for success.

    Professional services from SAP Consulting include:
    --  Advisory and Value Services -- Demonstrate the benefits of enterprise
        SOA to customers, identifying potentials for their business and
        creating an action plan.
    --  Design and Development Governance -- Released earlier this year (see
        May 13, 2008 press release titled, "SAP Accelerates the Path to SOA
        for Customers"), the enterprise SOA design and development governance
        offering from SAP ensures process integrity and enables customers to
        more rapidly experience tangible business benefits as a result of an
        enterprise SOA strategy. Enterprise SOA governance ensures structure,
        discipline and control from a generic perspective while addressing the
        requirements of each company in a specific view according to the
        customer's situation.
    --  Enabling and Implementation Services -- These services educate users
        and build up skills for the planning and execution of SOA projects. In
        addition, these services help customers through the implementation of
        enterprise services bundles and composite applications.
    --  SAP Custom Development -- This organization delivers individually
        tailored enterprise SOA-based composite applications,
        customer-specific enterprise services and related support offerings.
        In doing so, the organization helps to shorten concept and design
        cycles and reduce development time while minimizing technology and
        execution risks.
    --  SAP Education -- With a newly launched certification program in 2007,
        SAP Education focuses on enterprise SOA governance, design, modelling,
        composition tools and best practices for critical roles such as
        enterprise architect. The training builds on existing SAP skills and
        also brings more SAP-certified professionals to the market to meet the
        increased demand for talent for SAP customer employees and partners.

"Over the last few years, we have seen SOA move from a concept to reality with customers, due in large part to the comprehensive set of offerings from SAP," said Bernd-Michael Rumpf, global head of Field Services, SAP AG. "Complementing the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, SAP's tools, applications, services and a robust ecosystem of partners enable customers to develop a sound SOA strategy and execute on it. With additional ways of enablement like the enterprise SOA starter kit or the methodology for accelerated transformation, as well as comprehensive support offerings that have been developed over the last year, customers can more rapidly and easily derive business benefits like greater flexibility in our rapidly changing global business environments."

SAP Provides Ongoing Support

With the convergence of enterprise SOA and flexible business process management, ongoing support is crucial to delivering on enterprise SOA business value. A new support offering, SAP Enterprise Support services, is being increasingly adopted by SAP customers because it meets their needs by supporting mission-critical business processes and heterogeneous software environments. SAP Enterprise Support delivers holistic support beyond just single elements of the landscape. This end-to-end approach helps customers operate the solutions vital to their business by providing continuous innovation and investment protection of their software landscape. (See May 6, 2008 press release titled, "SAP Announces Next-Generation Support Offering")

To learn more about delivering business value through enterprise SOA, please visit https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/enterprisesoa

SAPPHIRE(R) 2008Orlando and SAPPHIRE(R) 2008 BerlinMore than 15,000 customers, partners and technical experts are convening at SAPPHIRE 2008 to discover how SAP and its thriving partner ecosystem are delivering IT solutions that create value beyond the four walls of the enterprise, to create "business beyond boundaries." SAP's premier educational and networking event, SAPPHIRE is the one occasion where senior executives, business managers, and decision-makers can come together every year to explore how innovative business solutions foster long-term, profitable growth. SAPPHIRE(R) 2008 was held inOrlando, Florida, May 4-7, and is being held inBerlin, Germany, May 19-21, 2008. For more information, please visit http://www.sap.com/sapphire.

About SAP SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 47,800 customers (excludes customers from the acquisition of Business Objects) in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including theFrankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." (For more information, visit http://www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource

planning and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG inGermany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

     For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
     Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
     United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

     For more information, press only:
     Astrid Polchen, SAP, +49 (6227) 7-47644, astrid.poelchen@sap.com, CET
     SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT;
      press@sap.com
     Torrey Fazen, Burson-Marsteller for SAP, +1 (617) 764-0146,
      torrey.fazen@bm.com, EDT

     During SAPPHIRE (from May 19 to 21), to speak with press contacts on
     site, please dial the SAP press room at +49 6227 7 74069.

SOURCE SAP AG

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SAP Unveils Comprehensive SOA Service and Support Offering