Acorn Announces Successful Renewal of SAP Software Solution Partner Status

Houston, Texas – October 9, 2008 — Acorn Systems, Inc., the market leading provider of enterprise cost and profitability management solutions, announces the renewal of their SAP third-party solutions certifications and SAP Software Solution Partner status. Acorn's certification and partner status reduces SAP customers' integration time and costs, safeguards their IT investment, and ensures the integrity of their data via stable interfaces. Market leaders from across the globe, including Coca Cola, Tech Data, Ingram Micro, TNT, Cemex and Deutsche Bank, successfully run Acorn and SAP.

According to SAP, an SAP integration certification ensures that a third-party solution truly integrates with an SAP product or technology. The certification process helps ensure high-quality integration of third-party products and a smooth flow of business data through SAP software and SAP components via open interfaces. When SAP customers look to expand their solutions, they know that an SAP-certified, third-party product integration can help them reduce their integration time and costs, safeguard their existing IT investment and ensure the integrity of their data via stable interfaces.

Acorn has earned SAP Software Solution Partner status with the following certifications from SAP's Integration and Certification Center (ICC):

SAP NetWeaver Platform Deployment - "Powered by SAP Netweaver": An application or content that is powered by the SAP NetWeaver technology platform is certified by SAP to run on SAP NetWeaver and was developed using SAP NetWeaver.

J2EE Deployment (J2EE-DEP): Acorn's core application, Acorn Performance Analyzer™, received this certification for Java compliant applications. During the certification of the deployment, SAP verifies that Java specification compliant applications from third-party developers can be deployed and run on the SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) component, itself a fully J2EE and Java EE compliant Web application server.

SAP NetWeaver Business Portal business package certification (EP-BP): Acorn's core application, Acorn Performance Analyzer was certified by this certification scenario that tests the individual iView portal content and criteria for the whole business package. Specifically, it verifies the structure and the deployment of a business package.

Data integration: Acorn provides data integration on both an "inbound" and "outbound" basis from SAP and 3rd party sources to Acorn's cost and profitability modeling and optimization solution.

  • Inbound (from SAP to Acorn): Acorn's SAP Universal Connector from SAP and disparate data sources make it easy and repeatable to move data input sources into Acorn's application with a low total cost of maintenance and ownership.

  • Outbound (from Acorn to SAP):
    o Acorn's Advanced Analytics Connector to SAP BW and/or NetWeaver BI makes it easy and cost
       effective to leverage SAP's BI platforms with Acorn's resultant content.
    o Acorn's SAP Universal BI Connector makes it easy and repeatable to use SAP NetWeaver BI on the
       resultant Acorn database.
    o Acorn's Microsoft connector for SAP makes it easy and repeatable for SAP customers to use the
       full power of Microsoft's reporting/analytic tools with Acorn content, including Excel and Performance
      Point, providing a low-cost yet powerful solution for Microsoft users.

Packaged Composite Application (PCA): Acorn Price Check for SAP, a targeted application for price compliance, was certified as a Packaged Composite Application (PCA). A PCA is a composite application that is developed by an SSP as packaged software with the potential of repeatable deliveries to multiple customers. A PCA is supported with maintenance and generally has new release schedules. A PCA is configurable and can be deployed at customer's environment without code-level changes. Acorn Price Check was certified as SAP NetWeaver Composite – Composition Tools based (NW-CA-CTB).

"For companies who have invested in and rely on SAP solutions, Acorn's certification and partner status makes it easier, faster, more automated and cost effective for them to deploy, maintain and succeed with Acorn's leading costing and profitability management solutions," said Chris D. Fraga, Chief Strategy Officer, Acorn Systems. "We are committed to SAP as a formal Software Solution Partner, and will continue to make investments in integration to SAP as part of our go forward Product Roadmap".


About Acorn Systems
Acorn provides profit improvement solutions that enable clients to maximize revenue, minimize cost, and improve operational efficiencies. Acorn reveals profit improvement opportunities across the enterprise, including customers, channels, segments, products, vendors, and processes, enabling clients to make continuous, fact-based decisions to improve their bottom line and Earnings per Share (EPS). Our unique and proven approach to profit improvement is used by leaders in Financial Services, Retail, Consumer Products, Manufacturing, Distribution, and Logistics, who have realized over $1B in annual profit improvements and created over $9B in new shareholder value. For more information, visit www.acornsys.com or contact sales@acornsys.com.