|
|
NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION |
For Immediate Release
Contact: Scott Krugman/ Ellen Tolley (202) 783-7971
Email: krugmans@nrf.com or tolleye@nrf.com
ARTS Announces SAP® Solution Certification
for POSlog Standard XML Schema
-- Standards Help Retailers Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency--
Washington, DC, May 25, 2005--The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), a division of the National Retail Federation (NRF), announced today that SAP AG, a leading provider of business software solutions, is the first company to be certified for POSlog conformance by "consuming" the POSlog schema. This standard XML schema captures and organizes point-of-sale (POS) data for use by POS data-dependent applications such as delivery, sale reporting, credit authorization, fraud analysis and inventory tracking. Consuming POSlog refers to the ability of SAP's ERP and retail software to easily integrate with conformant POS application providers using POS data.
As a result of ARTS compliance, SAP is awarded permission to display the ARTS Conformance Logo on their conformant products, enabling users to easily identify products that have accurately implemented the standard schema, thereby allowing them to reduce the time and cost of integration. SAP has further committed to testing for compliance to the new Item and Price schemas that have been added to the ARTS conformance test process to provide retailers a wider range of standards-conformant applications.
"Many retailers looking to enhance back-office functionality do not wish to make wholesale changes to their POS system," said Richard Mader, Executive Director of ARTS, "By proving the ability of its software to consume POSlog, SAP provides retailers this opportunity."
The ARTS industry standard allows retailers to lower the cost of integration between SAP's retail solutions and third-party retail solutions such as POS, "says Jim McMurray, Senior Vice President, Retail, SAP America, Inc. "Standards-based integration is an integral part of SAP's strategy to deliver an open business process platform for the retail industry that is based on Enterprise Services Architecture. This allows retailers to achieve the maximum business process flexibility at the lowest TCO."
"Our goal is to encourage vendors to become conformant," said NRF CIO Dave Hogan. "Through standardization, vendors can offer retailers a wide selection of proven applications."
A list of ARTS-conformant vendors is posted on www.nrf-arts.org along with detailed information on the results of business functions tested. Retailers are encouraged to review this site prior to purchasing applications to ensure they are purchasing systems that offer flexibility for the future as well as low integration costs.
The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) is an international membership organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards. Since 1993, ARTS has been delivering application standards exclusively to the retail industry. ARTS has three standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS and IXRetail. Membership is open to all members of the international technology community- retailers from all industry segments, application developers and hardware companies. For more information contact ARTS at ARTS@NRF.com or 202-626-8140. www.nrf-arts.org
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet and independent stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2004 sales of $4.1 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com.
SAP is the world's leading provider of business software solutions*. Today, more than 27,000 customers in over 120 countries run more than 91,500 installations of SAP® software—from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize businesses to enterprise-scale suite solutions for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver™ platform to drive innovation and enable business change, mySAP™ Business Suite solutions are helping enterprises around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP industry solutions support the unique business processes of more than 25 industry segments, including high tech, retail, public sector and financial services. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com)
(*) SAP defines business software solutions as comprising enterprise resource planning and related software solutions such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.
###