Open Source Meets Business 2009

Abstract

Users demand complete solutions, not islands of individual products that are expensive to integrate. Since a single solution provider is not able to address all customer demands, a customer-focused ecosystem is needed, which is built around trusted and relevant partner solutions & services and communities of co-innovation.

In this context, SAP has a holistic strategy how standards and open source software help complementing the SAP solution portfolio. SAP software uses, runs with and interoperates with open source software.

Learn how the SAP ecosystem works, where SAP engages with the standards and open source communities and how all of this delivers business value to our customers.

Biographie: Mark Yolton

Mark Yolton leads SAP’s network of Web 2.0 communities oriented around the company’s platform, products, and technologies. These include the SAP Developer Network (SDN), the Business Process Expert (BPX), and the Business Objects (BOC) communities, totalling more than 1,400,000 individual members interacting around the clock and around the world in 200+ countries and territories. SAP Community Network members engage online at http://sdn.sap.com and http://bpx.sap.com and http://boc.sap.com and at global SAP Tech Tour (50+ cities worldwide) and SAP TechEd (four major conferences on three continents) events.
In addition, Mark is responsible for SAP’s Standards Management and Strategy activities – which focus on engagement in technology, industry, and open-source standards groups, including leadership and participation in independent standards bodies, and the subsequent adoption of technology and business standards in SAP’s product portfolio.
Mark joined SAP and his current role in 2005. Immediately prior, he managed online properties for PeopleSoft and then post-acquisition managed Oracle’s online presence while integrating more than a dozen acquired companies into those channels. Previously, Mark was vice president of marketing and strategy for the $3B Services division of Sun Microsystems and was a catalyst for the company’s transformation to eBusiness practices. Mark’s career also includes experience managing internet and intranet properties, as well as field sales support and regional marketing for Unisys Corporation and The Prudential.
Mark has degrees in Communications/Journalism and Marketing from Shippensburg University in central Pennsylvania, and has completed MBA coursework at LaSalle University. A Philadelphia native who has worked in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Colorado, and California, Mark now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and travels around the world extensively as he works with SAP Community Network members and colleagues in the U.S., Europe, and Asia/Pacific.