Joint research projects with universities to focus on Mobile Computing, Voice-enabling applications and E-learning
Brisbane, Australia — Innovation and Information Economy Minister Paul Lucas unveiled plans today for the establishment of SAP Australia’s first research centre. He made the announcement at the opening of the SAPPHIRE ’01 Asia-Pacific User Conference at the Brisbane Convention Centre, which attracted more than 2,000 delegates from 25 countries.
“This is a tremendous coup for the Smart State. It demonstrates Queensland’s growing international reputation as a centre of excellence in information technology,” Mr Lucas said.
Joining other SAP research centres in Tokyo, Palo Alto, Karlsruhe, Walldorf, Bangalore and Johannesburg, the Brisbane centre will be based in the SAP Brisbane office, catering to most industry sectors in cross-organisational business processes and mobile computing.
SAP, the leading provider of e-business software solutions, will provide a collaborative environment in which joint research projects with Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the Distributed Systems Technology Centre located at University of Queensland will be carried out with the SAP Brisbane Research Centre.
“Business and education working together is part of the progressive approach to Queensland’s “Smart State” Vision,” Mr Lucas said.
Working closely with SAP customers who are early adopters of technology:, “The new Research Centre will undertake research in areas such as mobile computing, e-learning, cross-organisational workflow management, and novel ways of Enterprise Application Integration,” said Mr Lucas.
“The Brisbane Research Centre will work closely with the SAP Voice Centre in Palo Alto, California on voice-enabling enterprise applications for the Australian market,” said Chris Bennett, CEO and Managing Director of SAP Australia & New Zealand.
“SAP’s research team will comprise five full-time employees and employ university students and will fund approximately 10 external researchers,” Mr Bennett said. “The number of research staff is expected to double by 2003.
“The Brisbane Research Centre will also look to involve industry partners to pilot and assess the effectiveness of new technologies within the overall SAP environment. SAP has collaborated with other industry leaders globally to develop industry specific business and technology solutions in the past. This Australian research centre will play a major part in developing advanced business solutions for the future.
“Australia has always been known as a leader when it comes to technology adoption and usage,” Mr Bennett said. “The Brisbane-based SAP Research Centre has been established with the view to capitalise on the unique position of Australia in the global IT world. We also envision that this centre will produce some of the best software solutions for businesses worldwide.”
