Recognized as a leader for building and operating world-class online communities, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) continues to bring tools to the 1.8 million members of the SAP® Community Network to facilitate innovation and accelerate knowledge exchange. This announcement, made at SAP® TechEd 2009, the company's largest ecosystem education event, being held October 27-29 in Vienna, Austria, illustrates SAP's commitment to providing an environment for open innovation to complement and accelerate introduction of new products and services for customers.
Planned SAP Code Exchange to Support Community-Led Sharing and Development Projects
In order to continue developing new and innovative solutions to address business challenges, members of the SAP® Developer Network (SDN) community want to share software code and collaborate on software projects with other developers while they solicit recognition, feedback and contributions from the community. SAP's planned code exchange will be a one-stop shop where community members can share innovation around SAP products and directly develop and exchange code to build new solutions. A sampling of community members are currently working with SAP on projects for SAP's planned code exchange, with broader availability targeted in the coming months. By forming virtual teams to jointly create and enhance projects, developers may be able to help SAP identify demand for innovation that will complement existing products and addresses customer needs. The code exchange is being designed and developed as a community-driven effort using short release cycles and is targeted for full availability within the SDN site by year-end.
"As the maintainer of a community project that sprang to life on the SAP Developer Network, I'm really excited about SAP launching a code exchange area on SDN," said Morten Nicolai Wittrock, SAP Mentor and SDN member. "Having a co-development platform integrated into the SAP Developer Network will give community projects visibility where it matters: within the SAP community. That's something no other co-development platform can offer."
Availability of SAP NetWeaver Developer Licenses Promote Innovation
Continuing the commitment to make the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform more accessible for ongoing development, individual developers on the SAP Community Network will soon have the ability to acquire developer licenses for SAP NetWeaver free of charge. The use of ABAP(TM) programming language and the SAP NetWeaver® Composition Environment offering will help to create add-on prototypes that can be shared on SAP's planned code exchange. The licenses will also provide access to the SAP-hosted Enterprise Services Workplace site, where numerous SAP enterprise service definitions and implementation systems that implement them reside so these developers can test their prototype add-ons against SAP systems.
"Code exchange is the place for members of the SAP Developer Network to engage in grassroots innovation," said Mark Yolton, senior vice president, SAP Community Network, SAP AG. "Allowing our developer community to access and actively use the SAP NetWeaver developer licenses, as well as engage in prototyping and code sharing is a natural next step for the industry's most integrated ecosystem. Developers who freely share their innovations will not only gain recognition from their peers but will also be able to solicit feedback and ratings from the global developer and customer community."
Introduction of New Guidelines for Best-Built Applications
To further help its partners provide enterprise-ready applications that help customers differentiate their businesses, the "SAP Guidelines for Best-Built Applications that Integrate with SAP Business Suite" are now available on the SDN site. The guidelines provide recommendations on how SAP independent software vendor (ISV) partners can better align their complementary software with SAP® Business Suite software to help ensure that their solutions allow customers to build their own best practices for better integration, support, usability and reliability. Guidelines will be released iteratively and incrementally through 2010, beginning with this first 2009 edition.
SAP Communities Receive No. 1 Evaluation by Respected Independent Analyst Firm SiteIQ
SiteIQ, an independent analyst of online best practices, rated SAP Community Network number one in a recent study evaluating IT communities. SAP was recognized for providing an industry-leading community with many best practices, and scored high marks for relevancy, content, navigation, search and content-rich wikis.
SAP Community Network is an active and vibrant community of customers, partners, employees and other thought leaders from around the world who share knowledge and experience on numerous SAP-related topics. The communities provide an open environment for experts to collaborate openly through interactive blogs, wikis and forums, giving members access to information and trusted resources so they can truly co-innovate to solve problems and obtain fast, high-quality responses to technology and business questions.
SAP® TechEd 2009 in Phoenix, Vienna, Shanghai and Bangalore
More than 12,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are convening at SAP® TechEd 2009, the company's largest ecosystem education event, to gain the inspiration and skills needed to maximize impact on their organizations at a time when companies need both skilled professionals and agile, efficient IT solutions that can efficiently adapt to change. In its 13th year, SAP TechEd 2009 was held in Phoenix from October 13-16, is being held in Vienna on October 27-29, and will be held Shanghai on November 11-12 and Bangalore on November 18-20. For more information, please visit www.sapteched.com. Join the conversation via Twitter at #sapteched09.
Planned SAP Code Exchange to Support Community-Led Sharing and Development Projects
In order to continue developing new and innovative solutions to address business challenges, members of the SAP® Developer Network (SDN) community want to share software code and collaborate on software projects with other developers while they solicit recognition, feedback and contributions from the community. SAP's planned code exchange will be a one-stop shop where community members can share innovation around SAP products and directly develop and exchange code to build new solutions. A sampling of community members are currently working with SAP on projects for SAP's planned code exchange, with broader availability targeted in the coming months. By forming virtual teams to jointly create and enhance projects, developers may be able to help SAP identify demand for innovation that will complement existing products and addresses customer needs. The code exchange is being designed and developed as a community-driven effort using short release cycles and is targeted for full availability within the SDN site by year-end.
"As the maintainer of a community project that sprang to life on the SAP Developer Network, I'm really excited about SAP launching a code exchange area on SDN," said Morten Nicolai Wittrock, SAP Mentor and SDN member. "Having a co-development platform integrated into the SAP Developer Network will give community projects visibility where it matters: within the SAP community. That's something no other co-development platform can offer."
Availability of SAP NetWeaver Developer Licenses Promote Innovation
Continuing the commitment to make the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform more accessible for ongoing development, individual developers on the SAP Community Network will soon have the ability to acquire developer licenses for SAP NetWeaver free of charge. The use of ABAP(TM) programming language and the SAP NetWeaver® Composition Environment offering will help to create add-on prototypes that can be shared on SAP's planned code exchange. The licenses will also provide access to the SAP-hosted Enterprise Services Workplace site, where numerous SAP enterprise service definitions and implementation systems that implement them reside so these developers can test their prototype add-ons against SAP systems.
"Code exchange is the place for members of the SAP Developer Network to engage in grassroots innovation," said Mark Yolton, senior vice president, SAP Community Network, SAP AG. "Allowing our developer community to access and actively use the SAP NetWeaver developer licenses, as well as engage in prototyping and code sharing is a natural next step for the industry's most integrated ecosystem. Developers who freely share their innovations will not only gain recognition from their peers but will also be able to solicit feedback and ratings from the global developer and customer community."
Introduction of New Guidelines for Best-Built Applications
To further help its partners provide enterprise-ready applications that help customers differentiate their businesses, the "SAP Guidelines for Best-Built Applications that Integrate with SAP Business Suite" are now available on the SDN site. The guidelines provide recommendations on how SAP independent software vendor (ISV) partners can better align their complementary software with SAP® Business Suite software to help ensure that their solutions allow customers to build their own best practices for better integration, support, usability and reliability. Guidelines will be released iteratively and incrementally through 2010, beginning with this first 2009 edition.
SAP Communities Receive No. 1 Evaluation by Respected Independent Analyst Firm SiteIQ
SiteIQ, an independent analyst of online best practices, rated SAP Community Network number one in a recent study evaluating IT communities. SAP was recognized for providing an industry-leading community with many best practices, and scored high marks for relevancy, content, navigation, search and content-rich wikis.
SAP Community Network is an active and vibrant community of customers, partners, employees and other thought leaders from around the world who share knowledge and experience on numerous SAP-related topics. The communities provide an open environment for experts to collaborate openly through interactive blogs, wikis and forums, giving members access to information and trusted resources so they can truly co-innovate to solve problems and obtain fast, high-quality responses to technology and business questions.
SAP® TechEd 2009 in Phoenix, Vienna, Shanghai and Bangalore
More than 12,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are convening at SAP® TechEd 2009, the company's largest ecosystem education event, to gain the inspiration and skills needed to maximize impact on their organizations at a time when companies need both skilled professionals and agile, efficient IT solutions that can efficiently adapt to change. In its 13th year, SAP TechEd 2009 was held in Phoenix from October 13-16, is being held in Vienna on October 27-29, and will be held Shanghai on November 11-12 and Bangalore on November 18-20. For more information, please visit www.sapteched.com. Join the conversation via Twitter at #sapteched09.
