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SAP teams with HP and Intel to deliver breakthrough business intelligence flexibility and performance

New Technology Eliminates Old Tradeoff Between Flexibility and Performance to Optimize Query Response Times and Productivity for Knowledge Workers

BOSTON, MA, May 18, 2005 -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the completion of a development project with HP and Intel that produced the industry's first low-cost, appliance-like offering designed to provide breakthroughs in both performance and flexibility for SAP NetWeaver(TM) Business Intelligence. This offering combines the powerful technologies of the three companies to accelerate the performance of the analytic applications debuted at SAPPHIRE(R) '05 Copenhagen on April 26, 2005. Developed in collaboration with Intel as an integral capability of the SAP NetWeaver platform, the "Enterprise Services-Ready" technology is pre-loaded on highly flexible and scalable HP ProLiant servers running on 64-bit Intel(R) Xeon(TM) processors and HP StorageWorks storage area network (SAN) systems. In addition to being a partner for development, HP is the first and primary ramp-up partner with SAP. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE(R) '05 Boston, SAP's international customer conference being held May 17 - 19.

In the past, companies could execute high-performance queries, but only by sacrificing query flexibility and thus worker productivity. Companies now can gain instant access to valuable business information such as inventory and profitability data to help them improve productivity, make more accurate sales forecasts, enhance supplier relationships or increase the focus and effectiveness of marketing campaigns. The three industry leaders worked jointly to deliver this low-administration appliance, specifically designed to work with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence installations, which changes the way business intelligence is used within an organization. The combined offering helps ensure rapid implementation, maximum synergy and the lowest possible administration costs.

Increasingly, today's companies are called upon to handle greater and greater stores of heterogeneous data. In order to maintain efficiency and maximum customer satisfaction, companies must have the ability to query and access millions or even billions of records in minimal time. With the challenge of delivering response times in seconds and sub-seconds, it is difficult to balance good response times, acceptable maintenance effort and process integration. The associated cost of delivering such high-end performance for business intelligence has traditionally been tied to expensive hardware, considerable manual tuning efforts and stand-alone products disconnected from processes. Many companies will welcome the paradigm shift in boosting query performance enabled by this new appliance offering.

Based on search functionality and in-memory processing, the technology is fully embedded into SAP NetWeaver. Shipped by SAP and HP, the offering helps companies better access and exploit critical business information with the speed and flexibility mandated by today's market landscape.

Seamless Integration with Highly Scalable HP Technology

SAP is taking advantage of HP's system and solution expertise to offer the high-performance analytics technology as a packaged offering that easily integrates with customers' existing IT infrastructure. The technology is available to customers on 64-bit Intel(R) Xeon(TM) processor-based HP ProLiant servers, including low-cost HP ProLiant BL20p blade servers, and the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array 5000 (EVA5000) or HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array 1000 (MSA1000) SAN storage systems. The HP ProLiant blade servers provide easily expandable computing power for growing analytical needs and the modular design of the HP StorageWorks EVA5000 and MSA1000 systems provides customers with highly available, high-performance SAN storage systems, with scalability to multi-terabytes. Shipment will start with the upcoming release of the SAP NetWeaver platform later this year.

In addition to being the first and primary ramp-up partner, HP also is the first customer utilizing the technology internally to perform data analysis processes more intelligently, efficiently and at a reduced cost.

"Our hands-on experience, combined with our solutions expertise, uniquely positions HP to help our customers take advantage of this breakthrough technology," said Gilles Bouchard, chief information officer and executive vice president of Global Operations at HP. "With the new appliance, customers will now have the advantage of accessing large volumes of critical data to create reports in seconds for what would have taken hours of manual effort to collect. The powerful analytics capabilities of SAP NetWeaver clearly demonstrate the value HP and SAP can deliver to customers through our close partnership."

Intel Innovation for Enterprise Services Architecture

Intel is collaborating with SAP to drive development and scaling of its Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), including in the development phase. Enhanced query performance is a key element on a technology road map that conforms to ESA, SAP's blueprint for a business-driven approach to services-oriented architecture (SOA). Intel has innovative technology coupled with insight into how companies are implementing SOAs, helping customers address the challenges of moving to these environments. Intel's deep technology expertise and advanced Intel software development tools maximize the performance and scalability of this capability. Intel offers a broad range of open, flexible platforms-from 64-bit to dual-core and with features for greater security, manageability and reliability-via the industry's largest ecosystem of platform providers. Currently, more than 70 percent of all new SAP installs are deployed on Intel platforms.

"Organizations are facing an explosion in the amount of data they have to capture, analyze and act on," said Will Swope, corporate vice president of Intel Corporation. "Turning this data into key business intelligence information that can be used to gain a competitive advantage is critical for enterprises today. Intel, HP and SAP delivered the first implementation of a product that conforms to Enterprise Services Architecture, which allows key data to be captured more easily. SAP took advantage of Intel's tools and expertise to optimize for 64-bit and forthcoming multi-core computing and achieved a new level of performance for its latest business intelligence product on 64-bit Intel Xeon and Itanium-based platforms."

"This capability of the SAP NetWeaver platform represents a significant landmark along the road map to Enterprise Services Architecture, delivering on SAP's commitment to empowering its technology stack to enable new levels of business process innovation," said Shai Agassi, president of the Product and Technology group and member of the executive board, SAP. "Now, optimizing speed and flexibility in accessing crucial business insight is no longer an either-or proposition. SAP continues to work closely with HP and Intel to drive innovation across the enabling technologies underlying the SAP solution set-delivering tangible benefits to customers today while building on a scalable platform for future business growth."

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software solutions*. Today, more than 27,000 customers in over 120 countries run more than 91,500 installations of SAP(R) software-from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize businesses to enterprise-scale suite solutions for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(TM) platform to drive innovation and enable business change, mySAP(TM) Business Suite solutions are helping enterprises around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP industry solutions support the unique business processes of more than 25 industry segments, including high tech, retail, public sector and financial services. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software solutions as comprising enterprise resource planning and related software solutions such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

NOTE: SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

Web Site: http://www.sap.com



Jeff Chang, +1 (650) 320-3197, jeffrey.chang@sap.com

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