Meet Constellation: SAP's Google Wave Competitor

One of SAP’s goals at their Summit this week is surely to prove that they are cloud-oriented, and perhaps there will be more detail given about their new “decision-making” tool, named Constellation. Since the ERP giant announced the new offering last week, Constellation is being considered a Google Wave competitor, as it will allow users to collaborate in real-time through the use of widgets for cataloging and analyzing, on a variety of projects.

Constellation is currently under beta testing, and with its general release early next year, will be available as both a cloud-based tool accessed through the Web, and an on-premise solution—though much attention is drawn to the cloud focus here. The on-demand version has been codenamed “12Sprints,” and is being developed within SAP’s Business Objects division. The beta version is open for reservations, but for now it’s too early to tell if Constellation will prove a formidable opponent to Google Wave. SAP stated with the announcement that they are also in talks with Google Wave to see how the products work together.

It is definitely a smart move for SAP, choosing a collaboration platform as a means of making a splash (and proving themselves) in the cloud space. Collaboration products are best and most accessible as web-based products, and their market is growing at an alarming rate. Interestingly, SAP plans to offer a free version of the product in 2010, so Constellation while it’s being developed by SAP’s Business Objects division, it hasn’t been branded as an “enterprise collaboration” tool. Only with time will we see if they can carve their own niche in the collaboration space, and whether Constellation will become a mainstay in SAP’s ERP platform.

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