Sikka to Drive Technology Strategy and Architecture Road Map Leveraging Emerging Technologies
Walldorf, Germany — SAP AG (NYSE: SAP)
today announced the appointment of Vishal Sikka as chief technology officer
(CTO) to lead the company’s technology and architecture strategy across its
product portfolio. Effective April 2007, Sikka is responsible for ensuring a
clear and harmonized road map for SAP products to deliver ongoing innovation
and long-term value to customers worldwide. As CTO, Sikka leads the company’s
forward-thinking efforts around emerging technologies, plays a leading role in
the long-term direction of SAP’s research efforts and is chartered with
mapping SAP’s next-generation architecture. Reporting to SAP CEO Henning
Kagermann, Sikka heads SAP’s newly established Office of the CTO to drive
these efforts.
“Vishal’s successful track record inside and outside SAP clearly
demonstrates his innovative and entrepreneurial spirit and alignment with
SAP’s approach of empowering customers with continuous innovation without
business disruption,” said Henning Kagermann, CEO, SAP AG. “In next
generations of SAP’s open, flexible architecture, customers will gain further
cutting-edge technologies enabling them to transform their business networks
and maximize relationships across borders with partners, suppliers and
distributors. By establishing the Office of the CTO under Vishal’s leadership,
we are furthering our commitment to drive innovation at SAP and to help
customers increase competitive advantage and accelerate innovation in their
own businesses.”
Sikka assumes the role of CTO after serving as senior vice president of
architecture and chief software architect at SAP, responsible for the road map
and direction of the architecture of SAP’s products and infrastructure. Prior
to this role, Sikka was the head of the Advanced Technology Group at SAP, with
responsibility for strategic innovative projects. Before joining SAP, Sikka
served as area vice president for platform technologies at Peregrine Systems,
responsible for application development and integration technologies and
architecture. He joined Peregrine following the acquisition of Bodha, Inc.,
which he founded and served as the company’s chairman and CEO. Bodha developed
technology for non-invasive, service-based integration of enterprise
applications and for semantic information integration.
Sikka holds a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University and
is based in the SAP office in Palo Alto, California.
