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SAP ADDS ADAPTIVE COMPUTING CAPABILITIES TO NetWeaver

SAP AG announced that it will introduce innovative adaptive computing capabilities to the SAP NetWeaver integration and application platform to help customers leverage existing investments, drive enhanced customer efficiencies and improve flexibility. In support of this initiative, SAP is working closely with industry leaders including Dell, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, IBM, Intel Corp, Network Appliance, Sun Microsystems and T-Systems to help customers leverage hardware resources in a way that maximizes server and database performance. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE '04, SAP's international customer conference being held in New Orleans.

Companies faced with diminishing IT budgets are looking to better utilize their existing computing assets and become more flexible to respond to rapidly changing business conditions. SAP NetWeaver, the integration and application platform that drives business change, will offer adaptive computing capabilities to match computing demand with hardware to maximize the efficiency of customers' technology resources.

Adaptive computing is one of many emerging technologies that fall under the umbrella of Grid computing. Gt'04 -- a premiere enterprise Grid computing conference targeting industrial and commercial users -- will gather experts, and outline strategies and road maps for Grid deployment. For more information, visit www.gt04.com.

"The introduction of adaptive computing capabilities into SAP NetWeaver, demonstrates our focus on helping customers drive down operating costs and reinvest this money into supporting innovation across the organization," said Shai Agassi, member of the executive board at SAP AG. "Adaptive computing capabilities allow customers to maximize their IT investments, reducing TCO and increasing flexibility in adapting to changing software conditions."

Driving New Customer Efficiencies

The adaptive computing capabilities of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, which bridges software and hardware, help customers consolidate and streamline their IT infrastructure to better manage concurrent demand for hardware resources more efficiently. Software solutions are decoupled from their hardware infrastructure, enabling a more flexible use of hardware resources by matching the performance needs of business applications across the enterprise. With adaptive computing capabilities, customers can run any application on any server at any time, driving system performance at a low cost of operation.

SAP has developed unique adaptive computing features within SAP NetWeaver, such as shared services and service virtualization, which assign business applications to underlying hardware within minutes. Adaptive Computing capabilities provide a central operating point to control, observe and manage SAP business solutions to help customers streamline their IT operations.

Partner Momentum

SAP partners Dell, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, IBM, Intel, Network Appliance, Sun Microsystems and T-Systems are committed to supporting SAP's adaptive computing capabilities. SAP is working closely with these companies to, for example, harness the power of blade servers and virtual servers to help customers simplify their IT environments, leverage hardware resources and lower operational costs.

To help foster continued collaboration and innovation among these key partners in delivering new customer value, SAP has also created the Adaptive Computing Council. The council recently introduced the "Adaptive Computing Compliance Test," which enables qualified partners to leverage the newest, most innovative technologies while using SAP's adaptive computing capabilities.