SAP Adds Push Apps To Customer-Relationship Management

SAP is moving to make its forthcoming customer-relationshipmanagement applications more dynamic by including BackWebTechnologies Inc.'s push applications in the SAP CRM suite.

The alliance, announced yesterday, will see SAP bundle theBackWeb Foundation, the Automated Marketing Encyclopedia,and the Market Intelligence Manager with SAP Sales and SAPService. Market Intelligence Manager--which, like theMarketing Encyclopedia, builds upon the BackWeb Foundation--gathers competitive intelligence about rivals and customersfrom Internet or intranet sites, then delivers theinformation instantly to salespeople and customerrepresentatives in a form tailored for the individual user.The Marketing Encyclopedia likewise gathers internalmarketing and product material and sends it to users so thatthey are aware of changes in strategy or tactics.

The BackWeb applications may provide a needed boost to theSAP CRM applications, which have been widely anticipated bycustomers but have failed to materialize. Analysts say SAPCRM will come out later this year, but with far lessfunctionality than originally anticipated.