SAP - Open source friend or foe ?

pavithran writes: "SAP the largest business company offering software solutions, does it support FOSS as a movement? Why is SAP looking at closed and open source in a similar way? This shows lot of ambiguity in SAP's attitude towards Open source software. I found an interesting article in Linux Journal on SAP Open source friend or Foe by Glyn Moody. Here are some snippets from the article.

For an outfit that calls itself "the world's largest business software company", the German software giant SAP is relatively little-known in the source world. With 51,500 employees, a turnover of 11.5 billion euros ($16 billion) last year, and operating profits of 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), SAP is clearly one of the heavyweights in the computer world. Given that huge clout, SAP's attitude to open source is important; and yet it is hard to tell whether it is really free software's friend or its foe.

A company that wished open source well would back these ideas. One that *really* supported free software would also fight against software patents. So, while SAP's involvment in Eclipse and investment in open source companies is welcome — and pretty self-interested, it has to be said, given that it presumably hopes to make a profit on them — it's not really enough cancel out its unhelpful attitude and statements elsewhere. If it wants to be a serious, respected player in the world of open source, as befits its size, it must do better.

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