SAP Launches User-Friendly Fiori Apps

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

At its Sapphire event this week, enterprise software vendor SAP unveiled a new set of HTML5 apps that offer a more user-friendly take on common business tasks. Dubbed “Fiori,” the software interacts with SAP’s core functions, but look more like consumer apps than enterprise apps.

Computerworld’s Chris Kanaracus reported, “SAP’s software is known for its role running many of the world’s largest companies, but not necessarily for its user-friendliness. As part of an ongoing effort to change this perception, SAP unveiled Fiori, a set of 25 lightweight ‘consumer-friendly’ applications that can run on desktops, tablets and mobile devices, on Wednesday at the Sapphire conference in Orlando.”

ZDNet’s Andrew Nusca added, “The HTML5-based, responsive apps work across devices, desktop to tablet to phone. They can be deployed as a collection or a la carte, and can be restricted based on four roles: manager, employee, sales representative and purchasing agent. They are available immediately and are priced per user.”

V3’s Alistair Stevenson noted, “SAP co-chief executive Jim Hagemann Snabe said the appearance of more user-friendly interfaces on consumer products from firms such as Apple and Google has made businesses unwilling to accept uglier designs on business apps. ‘The challenge is clear, we are no longer benchmarking against business software, which aren’t generally beautiful, we’re benchmarking against consumer and they’re generally beautiful. We are committed to delivering the most exciting user experience in the industry, so we are launching the Fiori apps,’ he said.”

InformationWeek’s Doug Henschen observed, “Fiori means ‘to flower’ or ‘blossom’ in Italian, and it’s meant to symbolize the renewal of SAP’s core applications with clean, touch-friendly interfaces that look more like screens you’d see on Facebook or Amazon.com. The list of Fiori apps is said to cover common workflow, lookup and self-service interactions with SAP’s core apps, including approve-leave requests, travel expenses approvals, timesheets, paystub lookups, create sales orders, customer invoices and purchase-order tracking.”