Corporate software need not come as complicated hairballs of code, but can work as simply as YouTube or Google Web search does, the chairman of SAP AG, Europe's largest software maker, said on May 8.
Speaking at the Software 2007 conference in Silicon Valley, Hasso Plattner, board chairman of SAP, described the German company's new approach to software design, aimed at attracting small business users, and due out later this year.
In March, SAP said it delayed the officially unannounced software, code-named "A1S", which it had begun testing with customers but said was not yet ready to market. Three years in the making, 3,000 engineers are working on it daily, he said.
Plattner envisions software where all the ugly code is hidden from the user and instead delivered as a set of packaged services, on-demand - so-called Software as a Service, or SaaS. This is crucial for small businesses that can't afford the technical support costs needed to manage complex software.
Instead, some 2,500 features and services will be exposed for users to choose from simple menus, he said. Such features, or interfaces, to use the technical jargon, will be opened up so other software makers can plug their products into SAP's.
Office workers get instant access to all the information relevant to their jobs via personalised portals where they can select from a vast menu of features. Blogs, wikis, video-sharing - all the latest Web tools will be offered.