SAP: Inside the Secret Software Power. This item is unavailable.SAP: Inside the Secret Software Power

SAP came out of nowhere to become the world's second largest software company. Its stock rose 3700% in five years. It's made the cover of Fortune and other global business magazines. Everyone, including Bill Gates, is in awe of this Germany-based giantand at last they can learn what makes SAP tick.

In SAP: Inside the Secret Software Power, an internationally technology reporter takes an in-depth and penetrating look at SAP's founders, employees, customers, critics, competitors, and strategies. He profiles the company's meteoric rise in a real-life tale of power and intrigue.

SAP came out of nowhere to become the world's second largest software companyand, many say, the smartest. Its stock rose 3700% in five years. BusinessWeek ranked SAP's team of cochairmen among the top 25 managers in the world. Forbes ranked CEO Dietmar Hop with the power elite, one of the world's top ten creative and successful people.

What brought five IBM-ers with wildly disparate personalities together in 1972 to form a daring startup that didn't even own a computer of its own? How did this unassuming European group creep up and surpass such established forces as Big Blue - and then orchestrate an extraordinary penetration into America's high-end market which firmly entrenched its R/2 and R/3 software? What makes this maker of customized enterprise software so brilliant, so savvy, and so sought after that even Bill Gates is an admiring customer and partner?

This fascinating look at the inner workings of one of today's hottest companies was a major bestseller in Europe; now for the first time, it is available in English. International technology reporter Gerd Meissner opens the doors to SAP's offices to examine the minds and motives of the founder, employees, clients, and rivals who played key roles in the company's dramatic story.

Read SAP: Inside the Secret Software Power and you will understand how the quiet juggernaut known as SAP meticulously planned almost every more in its rise to global dominance in enterprise software...and cunningly improvised the rest. Revealing the strategies underlying its meteoric rise, this is a probing look at a technology megaforcehow it got to the top and where it is headed next.