Oracle To Integrate Apps With SAP

Oracle will disclose this week that it will integrate its customer-relationship management applications with SAP R/3.

While the integration will give Oracle's front-office users tighter links with SAP's back-office systems, analysts say the integration is intended primarily to entice SAP customers who are waiting for the vendor's front-office suite. "With Oracle offering integration to SAP, customers may start asking, 'If Oracle's doing it, why wait?'" says Steve Bonadio, an analyst with the Hurwitz Group. SAP says it expects to ship the first versions of mobile service and sales products in the second quarter.

The first applications to integrate with SAP will be Oracle Service and Oracle Internet Commerce, which will be released this summer. The rest of Oracle's front-office products will be included in Oracle Application InterConnect by year's end.