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SAP's products focus on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). The company's main product is SAP ERP. The current version is SAP ERP 6.0 and is part of the SAP Business Suite. Its previous name was called R/3. The "R" of SAP R/3 stood for realtime - even though it is not a realtime solution. The number 3 related to the 3-tier architecture: database, application server and client (SAPgui). R/2, which ran on a Mainframe architecture, was the predecessor of R/3. Before R/2 came System RF, later dubbed R/1. SAP ERP is one of five enterprise applications in SAP's Business Suite. The other four applications are: * customer relationship management (CRM) - helps companies acquire and retain customers, gain marketing and customer insight * product lifecycle management (PLM) - helps manufacturers with product-related information * supply chain management (SCM) - helps companies with the process of resourcing its manufacturing and service processes * supplier relationsh

SAP was founded in 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("System Analysis and Program Development") by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus E. Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther).[3] As part of the Xerox exit strategy from the computer industry, Xerox retained IBM to migrate their business systems to IBM technology. As part of IBM's compensation for the migration, IBM acquired the SDS/SAPE software, reportedly for a contract credit of $80,000. The SAPE software was given by IBM to the founding ex-IBM employees in exchange for founding stock provided to IBM, reportedly 8%. Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was SAP's first ever customer in 1972.[4] The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing"). In 1976, "SAP GmbH" was founded and the following year