We want to become #2 in the Asia Pacific market

How has the SAP NetWeaver done ever since its launch in 2004?

We have been selling the SAP NetWeaver since 2004 and we have a policy of
not breaking our revenues. But if we do so in the Asia Pacific, we would be the
fourth in the market.

We have a clear goal of becoming #2 in the Asia Pacific market and we measure
that with the customers that pay our middleware as part of their SAP solution In
monetary terms, we are doing very well. In the middleware space, we are doing a
lot of Web message replacement. In India, recently, we have done a Web sphere
replacement and we are also moving into other areas such as BI. This year we
adopted a dedicated sales force, and that has had a desired effect.

SAP has tapped the SME segment as well. How different is this market?

A lot of SME players are looking for solutions and not tools. Instead of
taking the old technology, we have actually gone ahead and embedded BI features
into them. The SME segment is not getting business processes but an ESOA
(Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture) solution within the product.

Talking of the BI space, challenges such as information explosion,
application of UTM (Unified Threat Management) tools, etc have gained a lot of
significance among companies today. Whats your take on that?

We have used the enterprise information, which is a very broad spectrum to
look at. SAP has been doing ERP for the last 34 years. Customers are producing
information, but we are not doing anything about it. You have a problem of
matching information from another. You need to have a centralized catalogue. Our
client, Reliance, went live with master data management, which is our product.
Once you have that, its not just a centralized catalogue but governance that
the company begins to follow.

Whats the latest on the Enterprise SOA front?

Today, customers understand the reality. We have something called the
business network confirmation. What they want to do is improve their business
network, and in a collaborative way.

One of our clients distributes electronic devices to shops in South Asia.
What they had done is that they had their ERP. In the new version, they do not
have to enable their service as we have already done that for them. They built a
deal of service application and they have improved their service application by
5-6%.

Prasad Ramasubramanian/CyberMedia News

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in