Photos: Google Maps gives SAP's business intelligence a new direction

Tech giants team up to combine consumer tools with enterprise tech...

SAP and Google have teamed up to bring Google Maps and Google Earth to SAP's business intelligence software.

The idea behind the tie-in is to allow large volumes of data to be presented visually, helping users make quicker decisions based on real-time information.

If businesses know the geographical context of their information, SAP believes they can better understand local, regional and global business trends and how different approaches work in different places.

"This is adding an additional dimension to the data SAP is taking care of. You have a lot of attributes for the data we are manipulating but to be able to localise that and to have the 'where' as part of the process will open up a lot opportunities for companies to develop additional functionality for their business applications," SAP's EMEA President Franck Cohen told silicon.com.

"Being able to localise a truck in a supply chain process, or being able to localise customers for a CRM system, being able to identify where planes are coming from - all of that is absolutely relevant. And therefore I think this geo-enablement for our applications makes a lot of sense as a next step," he added.

Shown above is a simple Google Map displayed within SAP BusinessObjects as it appears on an iPad. The green and orange circles indicate SAP offices around the world and how they're faring against the company's carbon emission targets.

Google Maps can already be used within SAP's StreamWork business networking application. Shown above is a map embedded within a StreamWork project, or 'work canvas'.

This Google Earth image within the SAP Proactive Risk Management application shows selected aircraft hangars and warehouses at Frankfurt Airport and the number of parcels that have arrived or are waiting to be despatched.

The integration of Google Maps will work on mobile devices and integrate with existing SAP iPad applications such as BusinessObjects Explorer.

The plan is to make the Google Maps technology available with the 4.1 release of SAP business intelligence applications and provide API access to other Google applications.