Sapphire Dispatch: Emptoris Granted NetWeaver Certification

Pushing full-steam ahead with its co-opetition approach to the Spend Management applications market, SAP has brought Emptoris into the fold by granting the provider NetWeaver certification. According to the announced, "Emptoris 6 has achieved 'Powered by SAP NetWeaver' status. With this qualification, Emptoris provides its market-leading applications on SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) with integration to the SAP NetWeaver Portal. Customers can now quickly and easily deploy Emptoris in their SAP NetWeaver-based environment." Now SAP customers that value lower-cost, lower-hassle integration will have a choice of going with SAP's own Spend Management Scion -- a good analogy in more ways than one -- or a higher-end Emptoris sedan that is ahead from a sourcing and contract management perspective, at least for now. In my view, the big winners in this announcement -- as well as the Frictionless deal -- are SAP customers, who will have the power of choice when it comes to vendor selection without having to give significant consideration to platform integration issues.

- Jason Busch