SAP preparing to launch rival to Google Wave
Constellation to herald battle in collaboration space
By Chris Kanaracus | Published: 04:28, 02 December 2009
SAP is looking to release a "virtual war room" decision-making tool dubbed Constellation, a potential rival to Google's heralded Wave collaboration platform.
Constellation will consist of a cloud-based tool accessible via a web browser, as well as an on-premises component, SAP official David Meyer said during a private webinar for a group of SAP "mentors," the company's term for particularly active and valued community members.
The cloud tool is now in private beta under the code name 12Sprints. While SAP executives had provided glimpses of the application earlier this year, the web briefing provided a wealth of new detail into Constellation's workings and SAP's go-to-market strategy for the product.
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Meyer, vice president of emerging technologies in SAP's BusinessObjects division, demonstrated how users could collaborate in real time on problem-solving "activities" that employ widgets called "methods." As examples, he showed a tool for cataloguing the pros and cons of a scenario, and another for conducting analyses using the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) methodology.
"The sweet spot for people working on an activity is say, five to 30," Meyer said. However, SAP will provide ways to publish activities to wikis, SharePoint and other platforms to reach a wider audience, he said.
