SAP Launches SAP Developer Network To Drive Open Collaboration Across Its Technical Community

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the opening of the SAP Developer Network, the platform for the SAP technical community to obtain and share the latest knowledge and information on SAP technology, first focusing on SAP NetWeaver and SAP xApps. The community, will be an essential forum to the more than one million developers who have obtained developer keys from SAP and are interested in learning how to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) while building innovative solutions for their organizations. This announcement was made at the eighth annual SAP TechEd, held at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas, Nevada from September 9-12, 2003, drawing more than 3,000 attendees and more than 50 SAP partner exhibitors.

Built entirely on SAP NetWeaver itself, the SAP Developer Network serves as a comprehensive content and collaboration hub that enables developers, partners, consultants and system administrators to share technical information, advice, code samples and tools across the SAP technical community. The SAP Developer Network offers technical articles, Web training, code samples, evaluation systems, special interest groups and information on developer-specific events, in addition to detailed technical materials. The majority of resources on the SAP Developer Network are free of charge, with a selection of premium content available to subscribers.

"The establishment of a developer community is a fundamental step for the adoption of any architecture or platform," said Gene Phifer, vice president, Gartner Research. "It not only allows for easy access into the latest technologies, tools and resources, but it lowers the barrier of entry and enables developers to quickly develop and deploy new applications. The value of a developer community increases exponentially with the number of members using it to develop business applications. As a result, the entire community benefits from the increased knowledge and innovation generated by the network."

Delivered via a state of the art enterprise portal and leveraging innovative SAP NetWeaver technologies, the SAP Developer Network provides a variety of user roles in addition to knowledge management tools such as search and classification, and sophisticated collaboration capabilities. In addition, the platform will be an integral source of information to those developers extending existing systems and those integrating and working with non-SAP systems. Customers, partners and newcomers to the SAP ecosystem will find detailed information on evaluating, implementing, building and using these technologies, all in one place.

"With the introduction of the SAP Developer Network, we have created a platform for developers by developers with a focus on building enterprise-scale solutions," said Shai Agassi, executive board member, SAP AG. "Just as SAP NetWeaver is platform agnostic, so too is the developer community, which is open to everyone be they from the Java, .NET or ABAP community. The SAP Developer Network will enable developers to upgrade their individual skill sets and to interact with their peers, all while fostering the delivery of more innovative and open solutions to their enterprises. We expect the SAP Developer Network to become a multi-channel platform that will create a community filled with more value-rich content than any developer Web site in the market today."

In addition, SAP introduced the SAP NetWeaver certification program targeted at individual developers. The certification will include online training through the SAP Developer Network and frontal, role-based training for individuals such as system administrators, developers and system architects. The program will also offer training on various components within SAP NetWeaver such as portal, business intelligence and Java development.

For more information about the SAP Developer Network, please visit sdn.sap.com.

About SAP
SAP is the world's leading provider of business software solutions. Through mySAP Business Suite, people in businesses around the globe are improving relationships with customers and partners, streamlining operations, and achieving significant efficiencies throughout their supply chains. The unique core processes of various industries, from Aerospace to Utilities, are supported effectively by SAP's 23 industry solution portfolios.

Today, more than 20,000 companies in over 120 countries run more than 64,500 installations of SAP software. With subsidiaries in over 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at www.sap.com.)