InformationWeek

'Cockpit' Embellishes SAP Apps

By Jeff Sweat and Tom Stein

nterprise application vendor SAP is moving into the hardware business-namely, tables and chairs-as part of an effort to push its R/3 software suite up to the executive suite.

SAP has begun selling the Management Cockpit, a specially designed room in which executives can view key information extracted from their R/3 applications using software developed by N.E.T Research of Brussels, Belgium. On the Management Cockpit's walls are panels of PowerPoint slides, fashioned from the N.E.T. Research software, that graphically illustrate information such as a company's market position, product and employee quality, and overall performance.

"That type of display of data could be extremely useful for business managers, particularly because SAP is known to be a very complex system," says Judy Hodges, an analyst with International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.

SAP America chief operating offic er Kevin McKay says the N.E.T. Research software does for R/3 what data mining software does for databases: lets companies drill into raw data to spot business trends. SAP also sees the Management Cockpit expanding the business value of its core R/3 apps. "Right now, we're still in a data-collection business," says Jeremy Coote, president of SAP America. "We're not transferring information the way we should be."

The $70,000 Cockpit includes the N.E.T. Research technology, wall panels, and an ergonomically designed table and set of chairs. There are no U.S. customers for the package yet, but European firms including Belgian telecom carrier Belgacom and HP Europe have adopted the product. Eventually, SAP plans to marry the Cockpit software with third-party push technology to deliver the business information directly to executives' desktops.

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