A2i owns xCat, an enterprisewide product content-management and cross-media catalog publishing system used in a variety of vertical markets including industrial goods, manufacturing, automotive, medical, and retail. SAP plans to fully integrate A2i xCat into the SAP NetWeaver stack, eliminating the need for customers to engage in technology-integration projects.
The combined solution will be called SAP Master Data Management, or SAP MDM,, and will be available in the fall as an update to the 2004 version of SAP NetWeaver. XCat will complement and extend the existing capabilities of SAP MDM with comprehensive support for enterprisewide product content management, more powerful data aggregation and harmonization, and improved Web-based electronic catalogs for both sell-side and procurement deployments.
"This acquisition is a perfect example of SAP's continued strategy to deliver the most complete and innovative set of products available to our customers," Henning Kagermann, SAP's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "This acquisition strategy allows SAP to continue to provide solutions that seamlessly integrate, helping customers leverage their existing IT investments, keeping down technology costs while maximizing return on investment."
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.