SAP, Teradata team up to streamline data

Enterprise software maker SAP and data warehousing specialist Teradata are teaming up to build a set of applications that aim to help industries streamline their data.

SAP and Teradata, a division of NCR, are hoping to cash in on the growing demand for analytics--applications used to query databases to build demographics or answer specific questions?-in industries in which companies are dealing with massive amounts of information. The two companies are targeting the telecommunications, financial services, pharmaceuticals and aerospace-defense markets.

As part of the agreement, announced Monday, Teradata becomes a global partner of SAP, which makes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software. The partnership gives SAP an opportunity to offer users of its software greater ability to sift through data garnered through ERP and CRM applications.

Many corporate software users have complained that such systems collect daunting amounts of information without providing sufficient tools such as analytics for scrutinizing the data.

Under the partnership, Teradata will blend its data warehousing software with SAP's NetWeaver Web services integration framework and other products. Both companies said they will contribute engineering, technical resources and consulting services to the effort.

"The enterprise analytics market is significant for SAP, and our relationship with Teradata will enhance our position by providing customers with industry-focused analytical solutions," Bill McDermott, chief executive of SAP America, said in a statement.

The two companies said they will first market the joint products to companies that already use both of their technologies.