DG: So, that would make SAP the largest software company headquartered outside the US, wouldn't it?

HB: Yes.

DG: How did SAP get to be so successful? What was the compelling area of business that made you grow so quickly?

HB: SAP was one of the first, if not the first, company to really integrate all the business processes across different components within the organization. So, no longer was the sales order process isolated. It was tied into finance, and that was tied into inventory and the business processes behind there. That inter-organizational collaboration, along with our approach of a three-tier architecture, really propelled SAP over the years into the leading position as the lead ERP, or enterprise software vendor, in the world.

DG: You just used the term "three-tier architecture." Can you explain that?

HB: In the past, systems all ran on a big mainframe computer back in the data center, and the desktop was really a dumb terminal that responded back and forth. So, these big systems got larger and larger and larger. What SAP was able to do was split the architecture so that we have the database server (which had the list of your customer names, etc.), and then we had an application server on top of that (which did the processing and the "crunching") and actually sent the information back and forth between the third tier (which was your desktop).

And now, with Mobile Business, we actually have the ability to extend that beyond the desktop to any mobile device.

DG: What's the typical size of an enterprise that takes advantage of your products? Are we talking about Fortune 500 or are we talking about smaller businesses?

HB: Typically, our customer base today is definitely the Fortune 1000. But, beyond that, SAP has grown considerably in the small to medium business market. We actually have a fairly large organization here, focused on just that market. So, that'd be the companies in the $20 to $50 million in total revenue range. And we do have a fairly large presence in that space at this point.

"As long as you have our latest version of the Workplace platform and ITS (Internet Transaction Server), you have mobile access as standard to the Palm OS platform."

DG: Let's talk about mobile technology. Why is mobile important?

HB: Mobile's important for a couple of reasons. Today the sales and service people on the road are requesting it; they're demanding it. It's a required part of the business to stay competitive in the industry. The other aspect is it's the next wave. We've gone from basic Web functionality as the craze, to e-commerce, and that was the huge next step over the last couple of years. Now, we're heading into the mobile wave, and we're just at the tip of the whole iceberg . To use something that we had in one of our own publications recently, we're just entering the "mobile tsunami."

DG: Now obviously, when you talk about something like the next wave, one of the first things that comes to mind is fads. Artificial intelligence was a "next wave" for a while in the 80s. It's found a home, but it's obviously not a key element of other business. How is this a "tsunami," but not a fad?