IBM might be yet be able to save itself. <BR>
IBM, BUY SAP NOW. <BR>
SAP wants to be bought(ITJUNGLE) <BR>
IBM, Do it NOW.

This is a discussion about <B>SAP Sets Aggressive Application Agenda</b>.<p align='center'><a href=http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc? This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it @.6b3d43d7>Click here for the article</a>.</p>

The article was pretty hard for me to follow, perhaps because I've never worked with SAP or their software, and couldn't put all the buzz words into proper context. <p>There seems to be quite a bit of evidence that "software as a service" will continue to grow. This was the business model that Ross Perot used to build EDS into a multi-billion dollar enterprise about twenty five years ago, but fell out of favor with the advent of personal computers, but is regaining favor with the advent of the Internet. <p>There are simply a number of economies of scale when multiple clients are sharing network servers and other resources, as opposed to installing and managing complete systems (including hardware, software, data conversion, training, help desk, on-site programming, etc.) at individual client sites. <p>The ramifications of "software as a service" on individual programmers, consultants, and technicians is pretty disturbing. In theory it would put a lot of people out of work, and make it harder to find contract work with small and medium sized businesses, if solutions are hosted and managed by big data centers. If a company like IBM were managing the data center, odds would be that many data center technicians would be working from India. <p>As far as "service oriented architecture" is concerned, I see that growing too, mostly as a replacement of EDI, but could lead to performance and reliability constraints if carried too an extreme (using distributed architecture for the sake of distributed architecture). I don't have a clue about SAP's implementation, though. <p>Nathan.