SAP Joins Telecommunications Alliance WAC

SAP NEWSBYTE - - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced its induction to the Wholesale Application Community (WAC), a global alliance of major organizations in the telecommunications industry that is committed to creating a unified and open platform for the market of mobile applications. SAP provides one of the core solutions for WAC powering all developer settlement activities. The company’s membership extends its support of the community.

Launched one year ago, WAC is a non-profit global alliance of telecommunications companies. Its main goal is to simplify the development, distribution and sales of mobile applications across heterogeneous platforms and multiple operators via a unified software development framework. Addressing a potential market of more than 3 billion subscribers, the WAC alliance comprises leading global communications service providers (CSPs), including AT&T, America Movil, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, KT Telecom, NTT Docomo, Softbank Mobile, SK Telecom, Telecom ItaliaTelefonica, Verizon and Vodafone.

“SAP is a market leader in enabling growth through innovation, and has successfully helped companies across all industries by providing relevant business software across multiple platforms,” said Peters Suh, CEO, WAC. “We look forward to SAP’s contribution as we continue to enrich our open infrastructure to enable the growth of the mobile applications market.”

Through the use of standardized technologies and application testing, WAC provides for the end-to-end process from the developer to the storefront, helping ensure the quality of cross-device applications. This platform supports the scaling of the mobile application marketplace, increases end-user choice and provides better support for the developer community.

“SAP firmly believes in WAC’s mission and looks forward to contributing to its success,” said Jens Amail, senior vice president, Telecommunications, SAP. “Joining this alliance of world-class CSPs allows us to build on our existing relationship with WAC as the core solution provider for all developer settlement activities. Our ambition is to play a key role in enabling telecommunications companies and developers to create additional revenue opportunities.”

About the Wholesale Applications Community
Launched in February 2010, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) is an open global alliance formed from leading organizations within the telecoms sector. Uniting a fragmented applications marketplace, WAC will create an open industry platform that benefits the entire ecosystem, including applications developers, handset manufacturers, OS owners, network operators and end users. For a list of members and more information, please go to www.wholesaleappcommunity.com.