Service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) company SAP AG unveiled SAP Enterprise Search, an application for information workers for locating critical business data from internal and external sources, and for increasing productivity.
The new capabilities work across a company’s existing IT infrastructure, pulling content from SAP and non-SAP systems. The company says this supports faster and smarter decision making. SAP Enterprise Search is currently available for developers to download, with commercial availability planned for 2007. The product was unveiled at the TechEd conference during its stop in Las Vegas. The conference tour will complete in Bangalore, India, this November.
“Enterprise search is fast becoming mission-critical software for enterprises,” wrote Matthew Brown, senior analyst, Forrester Research, in “The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Search Platforms, Q2 2006, Forrester Research, Inc., June 2006.”
“Over the past five years, vast improvements in the quality of public search engines has raised the bar for what employees expect to get from search inside the enterprise. As a result, search technology is taking center stage, and it’s playing an important role in markets as diverse as eDiscovery, business intelligence, security, media and entertainment, and eCommerce. Over the next five years, we’ll see more
and more companies turn to search solutions to help navigate the rising tide of digital information.”
SAP says there four key elements of an enterprise search solution: structured information, unstructured information, business context and openness. Unlike search engines that solely perform text-based searches, SAP says its Enterprise Search considers context, the enterprise schema and data model as well as the role, preferences and intentions of the person conducting the search.
The application allows information workers to jump directly from a set of results into a business transaction, report or workspace. For example, a sales executive can prepare for a customer visit by searching for the best-suited internal expert to support a product presentation, locating detailed customer information from operational systems, and even finding maps and driving directions to a meeting. The information returned comes from the company’s core applications, textual collections and the Web.
SAP Enterprise Search includes the main search engine within the SAP NetWeaver platform and new search capabilities delivered as enterprise services. Existing search functionality within SAP NetWeaver allows information to be indexed, organized and delivered directly into applications supporting the enterprise’s core business processes.
SAP Enterprise Search will be made available as a browser-based user interface for simple Web consumption, a desktop widget for quick access and will be embedded in mySAP ERP 2005. Plans are also in place to deploy SAP Enterprise Search on an SAP appliance, as an enhancement to SAP’s business intelligence accelerator.
“Enterprise search is a novel new user experience for enterprise applications,” said Shai Agassi, president of the Product and Technology Group and member of the executive board, SAP AG. “We have demonstrated that in order for people to be efficient they should get access to their information in the way that best fits the context of their current task. SAP Enterprise Search makes enterprise applications instantly usable for everyone.”
The company will be holding a conference on how to better utilize its enterprise search products in three locations. The SAP TechEd ‘O6 will reach Las Vegas, Tokyo, Amsterdam, before landing in Bangalore, India in November.
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