Today's corporate computing environment is too often characterized by silos of data in enterprise applications like ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. Integrating these applications involves hardwiring connections between them, often resulting in a rigid and inefficient IT infrastructure.
Packaged Composite Applications (PCAs) are an innovative answer to this dysfunctional scenario. Originated by SAP, one of the worlds foremost technology companies, PCAs represent a new architectural paradigm for enterprise computing. Using web services, they combine new functionality with services from existing applications to enable flexible, cross-functional automation. But is this new model right for your business? That's where this book comes in.
Packaged Composite Applications is the result of a systematic search through the brain trust of SAP for all of the relevant arguments, examples, concepts, and analogies related to Packaged Composite Applications. This book is not a marketing treatise about neatly-shaped colored boxes. It is not a backward-looking, outdated description of a product without context. This book, rather, combines the approach of a forward-looking analyst with the perspective of an executive who must make things work, without skimping on the relevant technical details. The author examines the ideas driving PCAs forward in the marketplace and the problems and solutions that an executive and technologist will encounter in implementation. The result is an authoritative text that allows all interested parties to assess the value of PCAs for their lives as executives, technologists, analysts, sales representatives, and users.
Dan Woods, a seasoned CTO, has built technology for companies ranging from Time Inc. New Media to TheStreet.com. He has managed the product development cycle from initial requirements through sales for web sites and software products designed for the publishing and financial services industries. Dan has also navigated all phases of the business cycle: crafting strategy and budgets, building and managing large development teams, writing patent applications, negotiating large vendor agreements, operating data centers, communicating with board members, raising money, and selling and marketing a product. Dan is the author of two books and a frequent contributor to InfoWorld and other publications.
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. Darren Kelly was the production editor, Debra Cameron was the developmental editor, and Jane Ellin was the proofreader for Packaged Composite Applications. Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Judy Hoer wrote the index.
Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book. The cover image is an original engraving from the 19th century. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.
David Futato and Edie Freedman designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Andrew Savikas to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Lucas-Font's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6.
