SAP to offer mobile ERP, CRM and business intelligence via Sybase platform

Promises app for mobile access to SAP databases within 9 months

SAP outlines plans following Sybase buyout

SAP outlined plans for the technology acquired through its £3.7bn Sybase buyout today, promising a new software development kit (SDK) that will allow third parties to build mobile apps which access information stored in SAP databases in real time within the next nine months.

The new mobile platform will be certified for use on all 'major' mobile operating systems and devices, said the company. It plans to modify SAP Business Suite enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other applications, including Business Warehouse, Business Objects Data Services and business intelligence (BI) software to Sybase's adaptive server enterprise (ASE) mobile database management application.

"We are not porting applications to mobile, but allowing mobile devices to access SAP applications," said SAP co-ceo Jim Hagermann Snafe.

"It is about using the mobile device as a front end, like allowing sales people to look at accounts or analytical information from an iPad."

"Sybase and SAP have been working on a common vision of on demand, on device, on premise strategy for the last three years: the mobile CRM and workflow apps announced at Cebit were the start and the two companies have come together partly because the engineering teams worked so well together as partners previously," added Sybase CEO John Chen, who will continue as the head of the separately run company.

SAP sees Sybase technology as instrumental in allowing it to expand its customer base in emerging markets such as China, where mobile phones and other devices are often used for business transactions instead of PCs.

Retail customers wanting to link mobile electronic point of sale systems (EPOS) into stock, supply chain and customer relationship management (CRM) and loyalty databases are a particular target, alongside corporate sales and field service staff, and financial institutions already offering mobile banking services to customers.

Nobody from the SAP or Sybase UK user groups was available for comment.