Evolution of SAP (System, Applications and Products)

SAP is one of the leading ERP’s (i.e. Enterprise Resource Planning) software in the world and SAP has a very interesting evolution from the basic product to the product used till date.

SAP: “System, Applications and Products in Data Processing Services”

SAP is a proprietary product of German Company SAP AG. SAP was found by five ex IBM employees who had been working in IBM enterprise wide software division. The name of the employees who found the company was as follows:

1. Dietmar Hopp. 2. KlausTschira. 3. Hans-Werner Hector. 4. Hasso Plattner. 5. Claus Wellenreuther.

They initially started the company as private partnership under the German System in the year 1972. Their first client was a German chemical company where they developed mainframe programs for payroll and accounting process. As IBM used to store data on punch cards mechanically they stored it locally and thus they called their software real-time software. [In the earlier 19th century punch cards were used also called punched cards, IBM cards, or Hollerith cards. In the 19th century these punch cards were used for controlling textile machines and then gradually in the 20th century the punch cards were used as in unit recording machines for input, processing, and data storage. The punched cards, often prepared using keypunch machines as the primary medium for both computer programs and data in the early digital computers.]

Their first commercial product was launched in the year 1973 and were based on the tier system like one tier system was called SAP R1 and two tier system was called SAP R2 and three tier system was called SAP R3.

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