From plant to boardroom over the Internet

While SCADA developers switch on to Java and its application program interfaces (APIs), the leading supplier of management and business software to the process industries, SAP, last month shipped its first Internet release.

The new Java-enabled R/3 business software suite is seen by SAP as greatly simplifying system administration since it eliminates the need to maintain presentation code on client computers. This means users can have access to R/3's extensive range of business programs - for financial, personnel, sales and distribution, and other activities - over the Internet, independent of the corporate hardware platform that may be in place.

As with potential Java-based process control applications, R/3 is now more open to third party software through the development of business application program interfaces (BAPIs). There are over 100 of these to integrate R/3 with third-party packages, and they have already been adopted by more than 85 of SAP's partners including Lotus.

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