By Elizabeth Kelleher
SAP AG CIO Oliver Bussman has revealed that the company plans to distribute up to 17,000 iPads amongst its 48,000-strong global workforce over the next 12 months.
In an interview with Computing magazine, Bussman also revealed that the company had already distributed close to 1500 iPads with email access, access to a virtual private network, Citrix software and business intelligence tools via BusinessObjects.
He said SAP employees are using the devices to trial the Mobile Sales for SAP CRM app, which was built following SAP’s recent acquisition of Sybase.
“We saw that the iPad presented a huge opportunity [to improve our sales environment], and it made sense that SAP should be ready to support the iPad and that we should embrace the mobile mindset,” Bussman said.
“All of the executives take it into meetings, it gives immediate access to all information, through access to email, the VPN, business intelligence and CRM. In terms of user experience, it’s the best device on the market right now.”
