SAP, RIM bring CRM application to BlackBerry

May 2, 2008, 12:34 PM —  IDG News Service — 

SAP and Research
in Motion
have teamed up to bring SAP's back-end business applications,
beginning with CRM, to BlackBerry
devices.

The companies Friday unveiled a co-development partnership that executives
called a "game changer" for the mobile business market at a press
conference at SAP's office in New York.

They did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, in which SAP enlisted
RIM to build a version of its CRM (customer relationship management) applications
for the BlackBerry platform.

SAP's CRM is the first application that will run natively on the BlackBerry,
but eventually the companies plan to build mobile versions of SAP's applications
-- including ERP (enterprise resource planning) and supply chain -- for BlackBerry
devices, said Bill McDermott, president and CEO of SAP Americas, Asia Pacific
and Japan.

"This is a major win for RIM and for SAP, but much more importantly for
any mobile professional that works anywhere in the world today," he said.

McDermott said that until now, CRM has failed salespeople because of the inherent
mobility of their jobs.

"They don't want to be chained to a desktop or tethered to the wall; they
want to be out on the street selling something to somebody who needs a solution,"
he said.

McDermott called putting CRM on the BlackBerry platform empowering them "at
the tip of the spear where the relationship happens with the customer."

AMR Research analyst Rob Bois agreed with McDermott that there have been challenges for salespeople in accessing information from CRM applications on the fly, and said he can't "really see the downside" of adding SAP CRM to the BlackBerry platform.

"Synchronization [of data] can be a challenge [and] a technical burden," he said. "A lot of IT organizations can

IDG News Service

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

I like it!
Post a comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
peer-to-peer

Esther Schindler
If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly

claird
SVG a graphics format for 21st century

pasmith
Take Chrome OS for a test spin

Sandra Henry-Stocker
Solaris Tip: Have Your Files Changed Since Installation?

sjvn
64-bits of protection?

jfruh
Android fragments vs. the iPhone monolith

mikelgan
What Gizmodo missed about the Pro WX Wireless USB disk drive

 

Where Google Chrome security fails: the password
I heard mention that the Chrome OS will have some sort of encryption available a la bitlocker. If it's possible to encrypt personal data using another password or key, then it may have potential for very secure data.... And Ubuntu has an 'encrypt home directory' option, perhaps google should follow suit.
- Dann

Join the conversation here

The Daily Tip

The Daily TipQuick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.

Hot tips:

Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.

Newsletters

Subscribe to ITWORLD TODAY and receive the latest IT news and analysis.

I would like to receive offers via email from ITworld partners.
By clicking submit you agree to the terms and conditions outlined in ITworld's privacy policy.
Featured Sponsor

AISO founders envisioned a Web hosting company that was environmentally friendly. While the company employed energy-efficient innovations like solar panels, its infrastructure produced unacceptable power and cooling requirements. Find out how AISO leveraged AMD technology to overcome their challenge in this case study white paper.

In this whitepaper, Scalar explores the opportunity to change the landscape with respect to mission critical databases built around Oracle. Leveraging technologies such as Linux, high-end commodity processing power and Oracle RAC technology to architect, design, build and maintain database infrastructure that delivers maximum availability, reliability and performance at a fraction of traditional cost.

On a typical day, weather.com, the Web site for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, serves up between 15 million and 20 million page views. But in September 2004, when back-to-back hurricanes ransacked Florida, the peak traffic on one day more than tripled: over 70 million page views by more than 7 million unique visitors. Read the full success story now.

Marketplace