February 14, 2001 -- EDS has selected SAP America to be a Preferred Data Center Provider enabling SAP's direct offering to the applications hosting market. The EDS announcement was made in support of SAP's expansion of its hosting program, which provides SAP software to their customers in a hosted environment. Through the SAP direct hosting offering, customers engage and contract directly with SAP, which assumes responsibility for installation, maintenance and upgrades.
SAP has developed seven different hosting models, ranging from familiar application hosting to specialized, hosted implementation and hosted learning services. This provides SAP customers with attractive options for streamlining their software acquisition, maintenance and upgrades. EDS will provide applications hosting and storage on demand for SAP R/3 software, the mySAP.com e-business platform, Implementation Hosting and Hosted Learning.
EDS has a long history of outsourcing SAP applications and is experienced at delivering SAP software to EDS clients in a hosted environment, said Tom Melchiore, vice president, SAPHosting. This proven capability and intimate understanding of our product, combined with global reach and a strong track record in data center management and applications hosting, were critical components in our decision to partner with EDS in this key initiative for SAP.
This application's hosting business model frees corporate resources previously committed to IT infrastructure management to focus on core business initiatives. From the software vendor's perspective, the model provides high-level application support for their customers and provides an environment in which customers can maximize the software's potential. At the same time, the model provides large amounts of data storage capacity in which to house and maintain applications and critical data for customers, and strong integration expertise. This ensures installation, maintenance and upgrades all occur seamlessly from the customer's perspective.
EDS is an ideal hosting partner for this business model, said John Wilkerson, president, EDS Indirect Markets. With more managed services expertise than anyone else in the business today, EDS offers proven processes, extensive integration expertise and a powerful global infrastructure. In fact, governments around the world look to EDS everyday to support mission-critical systems with the security and reliability that is vital for their success.
EDS has selected Sun, Compaq and EMC to provide key components in delivering the infrastructure for SAP and their clients. Under the terms of the agreement announced today, EDS will provide SAP all infrastructure, facilities, level 2 help desk and security on Sun's UNIX, Compaq's NT and EMC's Symmetrix platforms.
