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SAP Acquires IP Telephony, ID Management Vendors



SAP's move into IP telephony isn't surprising: VoIP means that telephony is essentially just software, attracting interest in VoIP from Microsoft and open-source developers. At the same time, telephony vendors such Avaya and Siemens have been moving into SAP's application integration space, offering platforms that aim to integrate telephony apps into a SOA.

However, telephony and related real-time applications don't easily fit into the messaging-based architectures that most SOA products still use. The move into IP telephony and the strengthening of its ID-management offerings also brings SAP into more direct competition with its partners Microsoft and Cisco--with both of which it announced joint products less than a month ago.
Andy Dornan
NWC Technology Editor

SAP announced a pair of acquisitions, picking up IP telephony and identity management vendors to add new capabilities to its business process applications. Terms of the deals were not disclosed.

SAP said it acquired Wicom Communications, which makes all-IP contact center and enterprise communications software. In addition, the vendor announced the acquisition of MaXWare, a provider of identity management services.

Together, the acquisitions add new capabilities to SAP's enterprise applications and its underlying NetWeaver application integration platform.

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