SAP launches SOA implementation service

As the SOA (service-oriented architecture) platform wars continue between the ERP vendors, SAP unveiled its strategy Tuesday for how it intends to increase the NetWeaver installed base among the major enterprise platform buyers.

SAP's Enterprise Services Architecture Adoption Program (ESA) will be launched in early April and offers a series of best practices workshops and tools such as a TCO calculator and a tool to map the Web services that support SAP packaged business processes.

In all, ESA is a four-step program, according to Ori Inbar, vice president of marketing for NetWeaver at SAP.

"First we help the customer grasp the vision where they want business and IT to be in three years time," Inbar said.

Following the vision, through SAPs service division, SAP will work with customers to "build a road map" about how to evolve IT infrastructure to match company business goals. In the third step, SAP will help companies go live with the SOA platform. Finally, in step four, Inbar says companies will gain the benefits of building custom software as a competitive differentiator and reduce resources needed to support standard processes.

What companies need to do is leverage standard software by picking reusable parts to create new differentiating business processes, according to Inbar.

Esat Sezer, CIO of Whirlpool, said that his company has been piloting the project for almost three years in order to eliminate legacy applications and migrate to the SAP architecture.

"Yes, SOA is in the manuals from all the vendors but nobody has a road map of how to do it," Sezer said.

What SAP is giving Whirlpool, according to Sezer, is an intelligent methodology and the capabilities to begin the transition process.