Founding of SAP

Five former IBM engineers – Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira, Claus Wellenreuther, and Hans-Werner Hector – founded System Analysis Program Development, later known as SAP, to develop standard application software for real-time data processing.

Significance

This marked the genesis of one of the most influential companies in enterprise software, whose integrated systems would become synonymous with ERP.