SAP and Crystal cut OEM deal

Agreement means more business for resellers

Reporting software vendor Crystal Decisions has signed an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with ebusiness software vendor SAP.

Crystal will integrate its formatted reporting and web-based information delivery technology within the data warehouse component of the mySAP Business Intelligence software and the mySAP.com ebusiness platform.

"This will allow more of our customers to upgrade to SAP," said Ham Patel, strategic partner manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Crystal. "That means more business for our resellers."

There are 300,000 SAP customers worldwide, making this a major deal for Crystal. "SAP users will get a good taste of our software via the OEM agreement," said Patel, adding that upgrades will give Crystal's channel more business.

The deal will not launch until the second quarter of 2002. SAP customers will have access to Crystal's formatted reporting software through all mySAP.com software, including customer relationship management, supply chain management, product lifecycle management, finance and human resources, said Peter Grendel, worldwide product marketing manager at SAP Portals.

"Our channel partners may not notice a huge difference, but their customers will," he explained.

Barry Wilderman, senior vice president of application delivery strategies at META Group, said: "Enterprise platforms that integrate reporting with business content are a step forward in maximising return on information assets. An effective integration effort, such as that between Crystal and SAP, means a more positive experience for the customer."