The way the business world accesses its data is undergoing a phase of rapid upheaval. One tour of the SAPPHIRE NOW exhibition areas and it’s clear that many companies have not been able to withstand the magnetism of the iPad. Not only is nearly every stand giving away one of Apple’s new tablet computers at least once a day; a significant number of presenters are using the handy touchscreen device to access a wide variety of SAP software. An array of such apps are already available for iPad – such as the Hasso Plattner Institute’s dunning app for SAP Business ByDesign 2.5, displayed above – or are in the final stages of testing. With HPI’s app, for example, users can display open customer invoices in Google Maps based on their geographic location. In a demonstration at SAPPHIRE NOW, this data was loaded in real time from SAP Business ByDesign.

Even in the United States, iPad has sold out at nearly all Apple Stores throughout the country; most customers must now register on a waiting list to purchase the device. However, consumer demand was not the sole factor that drove Apple’s sales figures past the one-million mark in the device’s very month. At SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando, you get the feeling that iPad may establish itself in the field of business even faster than iPhone.

More proof of this is seen in the many presentations involving complex business applications, where Apple’s computer interfaces are considered the ultimate in user-friendliness. The talk is often of small apps with which users can access larger SAP applications from their iPads and iPhones. For many SAP partners, this opens a new field of business – one that many would have not predicted just one year ago.

In the near future, everything will be mobile: various devices, the corresponding software, and any users who have not already made the transition. With the right tools and integration, employees will be able to work on and analyze any business data from anywhere by smartphone or tablet PC. It’s evident that most SAPPHIRE NOW attendees have developed something of a dependency on mobile connectivity, constantly checking their e-mail and synchronizing their appointment schedules during short breaks at the event.

SAP is also accelerating its development of software for mobile devices. It wants to become the world leader in mobile business software, particularly with platforms and databases from the recently acquired Sybase. SAP plans to address the full range of mobile devices in the future, from smartphones like iPhone and Blackberry to tablet computers like iPad. The conventional desktop PC is no longer a topic of conversation.

Here, we present a number of iPad apps that have debuted at SAPPHIRE NOW.

1. Syclo Smart Mobile Suite: Integrated with SAP Business Suite 7

2. Mellmo Roambi Visualizer: Business Intelligence

iPad as a replacement for desktops and notebooks (photo: Frank Völkel)