By Nathan Dukes
One new Google solution allowing SAP users to collaborate via online ‘conversations’ to brainstorm and develop ideas.
Key to the products initial ‘wow’ factor has been its ability to incorporate social media functionality, such as instant messaging and communal white-boarding, with traditional SAP tasks.
Google Wave was showcased at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco earlier this month. Part of the presentation was a demo of how the product interacts with solutions, namely SAP.
The collaborative, social media direction Google Wave is taking shows that software developers are looking to these technologies for the next generation of IT solutions.
This solution offers a glimpse into the future of enterprise software, and provides organisations who like being on the bleeding edge a taste of what to expect.
Available uses for the tool might not be that far away either; SAP is already developing potential uses for the technology.
One of their first is a prototype called ‘Gravity’- a Business Process Modelling tool developed by SAP Research in Brisbane.
Gravity is an extension for the Google Wave Platform, which in the demonstration video below allows users to discuss and develop a process model for home load approval.
Inside the ‘wave’ users can discuss ideas and develop the model in real time. They can they invite other users to the wave so they can add their input.
Because the wave is real time, users who enter after the wave has started can ‘rewind’ the conversation and view each element as it is added to the wave.
To make use of the information created, Gravity can then translated the data into XML, before transferring it from Google Wave into the SAP Netweaver BPM workbench.
