Founding of SAP

Five former IBM engineers – Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira, Claus Wellenreuther, and Hans-Werner Hector – leave IBM to start their own company, 'System Analysis Program Development', driven by the vision of real-time, integrated business software.

Significance

This marked the genesis of what would become the world's largest business software company, laying the philosophical and technical groundwork for Enterprise Resource Planning.