19 April 2002 Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software giant SAP has announced it is to bring its SAP Portals and Markets subsidiary back into its core operations.

The two units – which were combined into a single subsidiary in January 2002 – are being subsumed into a new division within SAP and will be managed by Shai Agassi, former CEO of portals company Top Tier, which SAP acquired in 2001.

One of the aims of the move, according to SAP’s co-CEO Hasso Plattner, is to allow the Portals and Markets technology to be better integrated with SAP’s flagship mySAP.com ERP suite. This will allow users to more easily route data about marketplace transactions, for example, through the back-office system, as well as enabling organisations to view this data via an enterprise portal.

“Two years ago, SAP sent two scouting boats – SAP Markets and SAP Portals – ahead to explore the evolving waters of openness in business software,” said Plattner. “SAP has the advantage of understanding how quickly the market has evolved from a technology play into an applications game.”

As well as allowing better integration with SAP’s own products, Plattner wants the new division to create easier links to non-SAP software, lowering the barriers to entry for organisations with enterprise applications from multiple vendors.