SAP Launches Online Resource for Academic Communit

SAP Launches Online Resource for Academic Community

SAP® University Alliances Community Supports Active Collaboration Among Professors, Students, Customers and Partners Worldwide

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the launch of the SAP® University Alliances community, an advanced, interactive Web portal designed for the academic population worldwide. The portal is a multifaceted online environment that delivers the latest academic resources for bringing real-life SAP knowledge and skills into university classrooms. It will also enhance related academic and research-oriented projects for lecturers and students. The new portal demonstrates SAP’s commitment to the education and mentoring of university students and graduates who are the business experts and IT leaders of the future.

The SAP University Alliances community delivers the comfortable feel of a traditional university campus, complete with a career resource centre, faculty club, student union, library, classrooms, and other similar facilities in a virtual community setting. Each area presents higher education content supplied by SAP and community participants, including interactive academic resources, such as course lectures, case studies, exercises, demonstrations and videos, thought leadership forums and community blogs. The site facilitates faculty and student collaboration and contribution, job posting and search, as well as networking with SAP customers, partners and business units. Skills development and career opportunities for university students, academics and other community participants are the central focus of the site.

“The users of this community-based portal will extend significantly beyond those involved with the long-standing SAP University Alliances programme,” said SAP co-CEO Léo Apotheker. “Lecturers and students from programme member and non-member universities alike now have access to effective, clear networking tools designed to expand their skill sets for developing and using enterprise technology. The portal highlights SAP’s global commitment to technology education, and will help increase student participation and expand the worldwide pool of SAP-knowledgeable graduates.”

Portal Builds on and Expands Proven Collaborative Networks

The portal is built on the advanced technology of the SAP community network, where the SAP® Developer Network (SDN) community, Business Process Expert (BPX) community and SAP® BusinessObjects™ community already offer active online collaboration and co-innovation opportunities for SAP customers, partners and employees. Faculty and students now have the ability to communicate and participate with the larger SAP online community of 1.5 million users. The SAP University Alliances programme has the potential to add thousands of academics and one million students to the greater SAP community network over the next few years.

“The cross pollination that is enabled between academia and industry by the SAP University Alliances community benefits both SAP and the participating students and universities,” said Dr. Pierre-Majorique Léger, associate professor, Department of Information Technologies, HEC Montréal, and a moderator on the new SAP University Alliances portal. “The innovative educational tools are aimed to grow the high-value, skilled IT workforce critically needed in today’s competitive global environment. As the global economy faces new challenges, the value of well-trained and career-ready individuals only becomes more apparent.”

“What’s impressive about this community is that it strikes the right balance between IT and business process disciplines to help students learn not only how to run IT, but the business as well. It also provides rich opportunities for unique academic and job roles in an expanding SAP ecosystem,” said Cushing Anderson, programme vice president, IDC.

SAP will spotlight the benefits and tools of the new portal at its next major faculty event, the SAP Curriculum Congress ‘09, to be held March 13-14, 2009, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mark Yolton, senior vice president of the SAP Community Network, will be a keynote speaker.

To participate in the SAP University Alliances community, visit the site for more information as well as registration instructions. Visit the sap.com newsroom to view an image of the SAP University Alliances community site.

About the SAP University Alliances Programme

The SAP University Alliances programme is a global initiative with nearly 900 member campuses in more than 40 countries. SAP provides free licences to its business software suite to member universities and technical institutes for use in disciplines such as management, operations research, accounting, finance, marketing, information technology and computer science. The programme enables students at participating campuses to experience how organisations operate more productively and profitably through advanced academic curriculum that includes hands-on exercises using SAP’s current business software. Peer hosting is provided at low cost by five independent non-profit University Competence Centers located across the world. More than 175,000 students gain first-hand experience with SAP software each year.

About SAP

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 82,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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