SAP is planning to deliver six new SAP mobile apps for Windows 8. SAP also announced forthcoming support for Windows 8 development on the SAP Mobile Platform as well as security enhancements to the SAP Afaria mobile device management solution. Through these apps, platform support and security enhancements, SAP said it intends to extend business processes to Windows 8 to accelerate a business’ ability to run better with devices of various form factors. The announcements were made at SAPPHIRE NOW + SAP TechEd in Madrid.
The six new SAP mobile apps for Windows 8 are focused on enterprise functions such as training, recruiting and sales. All six of these mobile apps are planned to be available for download in both the Windows Store and SAPStore. SAP WorkDeck, developed first for Windows 8, is a new persona-centric app that offers contextual integration of various information sources and processes into a role-based view. It enables employees to initiate new requests, oversee upcoming events and monitor the progress, as well as enable managers to react and process workflows on-the-go, such as travel, leave and purchasing requests. In addition, SAP Manager Insight is an employee profile app that provides managers with access to key indicators, such as diversity, headcount, employee talent by location, as well as employee profiles, to drive collaborative and informed human resources (HR) decision-making; SAP Learning Assistant is a training app that gives on-the-go workers tag-along teachers. It makes on-demand, online training available anytime, anywhere so workers can access required classes to address compliance and job requirements; SAP Interview Assistant is a recruiting app that eases the cumbersome task of arranging interviews. It also helps managers review candidate information, prepare notes, record results, and provide immediate feedback to HR; SAP Customer Financial Fact Sheet is a customer profile app for account executives to access financial data, invoices and critical sales orders in real time; and finally SAP GRC Policy Survey is a policy app for employees to review and acknowledge relevant policy changes and fill in surveys to ensure they understand the policies.
In addition, SAP Mobile Platform (previously called the Sybase Unwired Platform) is planned to support the creation and deployment of mobile apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. SAP intends to enable the large community of Microsoft developers to quickly create apps (HTML5 and JavaScript) using Visual Studio, as well as enable developers to access SAP Mobile Platform services for enhanced security and authentication, user/device/app provisioning and push notification to help ensure a consistent user experience across devices of different form factors on a single platform. To make app development of security-enhanced apps even simpler, SAP announced plans to release a library for login and authentication for Windows 8, which aims to allow developers to enable multiple incorporation options in their apps. By connecting to SAP Mobile Platform, apps are planned to be able to access SAP and non-SAP apps and data while helping deliver enterprise-grade enhanced security, policy and access management as well as app life-cycle management. The mobile platform is intended to provide a high-availability infrastructure for apps, helping ensure knowledge workers can stay productive virtually anytime, anywhere. SAP also plans to enable partners to begin to develop apps for Windows 8. A free trial of SAP Mobile Platform for developers is available on SAP Community Network here.
Enhancing enterprise security, customers can help secure their mobile environment to help protect Windows 8 devices, content and apps using one of the industry’s mobile device management leaders, SAP Afaria, which is now available for Windows 8. SAP Afaria is also now certified to fully support Intel-based tablets featuring Windows 8.
SAP also announced plans to develop apps for Windows RT and Windows Phone 8.