By John Oates, 14 September 1999 13:02
NEWS According to Dr. Erwin Königs, chairman and CEO of Software AG, traditional ERP vendors were incapable of fully integrating business systems onto the Internet. Speaking at the IDC IT Forum in Paris, Königs outlined the problem faced by businesses today in moving IT systems to take advantage of the Internet. He summarised what he described as "non-solutions" to this problem. He said: "ERP vendors claim they can do this. SAP and the like are heavy back office systems. They all claim they are on the Web, but they are children of the 80s and are fairly monolithic, inflexible software products - they should stay where they belong." Königs claimed the way to move systems forward was to build from the technology in place. He said it is too expensive and too slow to create whole new systems and applications. He believes that XML will become the standard language for this integration. Speaking to Silicon.com after his speech, Königs said the problems holding businesses back from exploiting these opportunities were cultural rather than technical. In his opinion: "There is a generation change. Chief information officers are typically in their forties or fifties and don't feel comfortable with this slightly strange Web world." Database company Software AG floated in April 1999 for $463m (£289m) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange - making it Europe's largest ever IPO.
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