Yahoo and SAP target corporate portal space

Internet giant Yahoo and German software firm SAP have got together to develop and sell corporate web portals.

Following SAP's acquisition of Toptier Software last week, the enterprise resource planning applications vendor has created a new subsidiary, SAP Portals, to work with Yahoo.

The new operation will integrate mySAP and eSAP, the firm's services division, and will employ 700 staff in California and Germany. The aim is to license its technology outside of the SAP group of companies.

Hasso Plattner, SAP's chief executive, claimed: "Ours will be the best available enterprise portal that combines robust content and functionality with an intuitive user interface. We expect the joint product will be the enterprise product of choice for business."

The deal with Yahoo will lead to the creation of web portal software that is due to be released later this year. The software will present content such as sales tracking, human resources information or financial news, based on users' roles in the company deploying it.

Yahoo hopes the deal will boost its corporate business, which it has been trying to push since it was launched in June last year.

Analysts said the deal would spice up Yahoo's corporate portal intranet technology by enabling users to access back-office systems, while the addition of SAP's sales force would also help to increase revenues.

Yahoo is currently looking to decrease its reliance on falling online advertising revenues, but the deal with SAP takes it into an increasingly competitive market that has also attracted the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.