Back in 1972, five systems analysts began working nights and weekends to create standard software with realtime data processing. Twenty-five years later their vision is a reality: SAP is the world’s market and technology leader in business application software.
On April 1, 1972 five former IBM employees founded SAP as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung (“Systems Analysis and Program Development”) in Mannheim, Germany. Their vision was to develop and market standard enterprise software which would integrate all business processes. The idea came to them through their work as systems consultants for IBM when they noticed that client after client was developing the same, or very similar, computer programs. The second part of their vision was that data should be processed interactively in realtime, and the computer screen should become the focal point of data processing.
And today the world knows that they did it. Did it real good.