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Technology Stocks : SAP A.G. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott Brooks who wrote (2697)	10/18/1998 7:27:00 PM
From: Pareto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3424

Lower prices, higher growth!! I work for one of the Fortune 100 companies which has defined SAP as their standard platform. But there is a difference between choice and reality. Less than 15% of users worldwide are currently working with SAP, the revenue flow will continue. Profit on implementation is the highest in the roll out range from 15% to 90% users. All sales cost are made, the client is secured, pilots have been run successfully. Many countries are now preparing for Y2k on the existing platform. I agree with the market expectation that growth may be slowed for the next year. If you measure market saturation as the number of mayor clients which has made the choice for a system, then it may be > 50%. But only a few early adopters have implemented the system in more than 80% of their company. Some technologies redefine markets. 5-10 years ago, the global economy mainly referred to global trade. Just a very few companies had a truly global integrated operation. Now just some more companies are on this road. The global telecommunications infrastructure is now becoming 'almost as good as at home'. PC's become available at a low price and with a common operating system (250M Windows licences). Cable TV distributes news around the worlds as events happen. International air transport, with higher frequencies and lower cost, enables corporate staff to meet each other, instead of the yearly flight home of the expat manager. Add the tremendous potential of the Internet in the areas of information sharing and business transactions. I think that the ERP market is now in its infancy and will grow very fast. Many companies might have a good single site system. Some corporations might have a single country or regional system. A few industries might have a number of systems working integrated (Wal Mart in the USA with its suppliers, the automotive industry). But if you look globally, we are just beginning. I would like to share ideas with my 'friends on the thread' about the lines of development we see for the future. I'm not so interested in day trading or monthly share price movements. I think that SAP has the ability to create global integration within companies and between industries. As DOS was the standard for PC's, SAP could be the standard for systems. Lower prices will only speed this up, and will open larger markets. Their are millions of possible users who might need a SAP web-interface to global business. My interest is not just SAP, but the issue how information systems will develop. It is likely that standard definitions of data formats and interfaces will generate a transactional information system, like the telephone system or the Internet itself. Two examples: Bar codes do exist, but no worldwide directory of product codes. The Tesco supermarket chain in the UK had to set up a industry standardization unit, because every company in the supply chain used its own codes and descriptions. The Heinz ketchup bottle had 60 different descriptions. There is no global standard code systems for ports comparable to the IATA airport code system. Most shipping companies or multinationals have their own internal codes and need translating to communicate. Hope to read your thoughts Pareto