SAP Augmented Corporate Reality Proof of Concept

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[UPDATE: See this post for the soon-to-be released prototype from the SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center]

Here’s an example of “augmented corporate reality” based on the Layar platform and the SAP BusinessObjects ondemand.com platform, running on a Google Nexus One Android phone.

These are all screenshots taken from a working proof of concept, shown as an example of the type of functionality business users might have access to in the future — not with any promise of such a product in the future.

Open the Layar application, look at the list of available “layers”, and choose the SAP Web 2.0 Augmented Corporate Reality Example image
The application opens the camera’s phone, and connects to a business intelligence server to get information about the customer businesses closest to the current location.

This information is shown in the small radar screen in the top right, and an icon for each customer is shown on the screen. As the phone moves, the icons appear to stay in one place, hovering over the physical location of that customer’s building.

Each icon indicates the customer’s sales performance (the arrow direction shows the trend, the color indicates whether or not sales have reached my target or not). The size of the icon indicates roughly how near or far the office is.

The application automatically highlights the location closest to the center of the display, and shows more information about that business (name, distance, photo, current and previous sales, and sales target)

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Users can click on the selector in the top left to see the customers as a list, ordered by distance from the current location (realistically, this is likely to be the easiest, most popular location-aware information use) image
Alternatively, we can see the customers, and their performance icons, shown overlaid on a map. image
When the user clicks on one of the icons, they see more data about that business, and can click on the “Get Data” button to drill in for more information. image
This takes them to a live report hosted on the SAP BusinessObjects on-demand business intelligence environment… image
…where they can drill into the numbers, open other reports and charts, etc. image

We hope to open up the prototype for use by others, with the ability to add other example locations, etc.

What could businesses really do with this? Well, maybe you’re a branch manager, and you want to get the latest sales figures as you visit the branch:

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Or a factory manager who wants to see the maintenance records for a particular machine:

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Or you’d like to compare performance of goods displayed inside the store with the goods stored in the shop window:

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What you can do with this technology is currently restricted by the location services: realistically, it works well for identifying building locations outdoors using GPS, but is not yet precise enough for most indoor use. However, this is changing fast as vendors offer new location services, based on cell-phone, wifi, and other forms of signal triangulation.


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19 responses to “SAP Augmented Corporate Reality Proof of Concept”

  1. […] Reality” from Timo Elliot Posted on October 3, 2010 by alanbowling Check out this cracking post from Timo Elliot, a glimpse into a future that isn’t that far […]

  2. […] on a blog post and proof-of-concept application earlier this year, I have been championing a SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center project to build […]

  3. […] on a blog post and proof-of-concept application earlier this year, I have been championing a SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center project to build […]

  4. […] released some proof-of-concept mock-ups on his blog earlier this year (see our coverage), but the project is now in development at SAP in […]

  5. […] released some proof-of-concept mock-ups on his blog earlier this year (see our coverage), but the project is now in development at SAP in […]

  6. […] released some proof-of-concept mock-ups on his blog earlier this year (see our coverage), but the project is now in development at SAP in […]

  7. […] released some proof-of-concept mock-ups on his blog earlier this year (see our coverage), but the project is now in development at SAP in […]

  8. […] us a look at what an augmented enterprise could look like. Elliot released some proof-of-concept mock-ups on his blog earlier this year (see our coverage), but the project is now in development at SAP in […]

  9. […] on a blog post and proof-of-concept application earlier this year, I have been championing a SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center project to build […]

  10. […] on a blog post and proof-of-concept application earlier this year, I have been championing a SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center project to build […]

  11. Ryan Goodman Avatar

    This is a great idea to socialize the concept of augmented reality in a way that businesses users can digest. I think that technologies like Layar are taking the first preliminary steps toward the ultimate goal of location information immersion. The video raises a key question though… At what point will we no longer require a handheld screen to consume information on the go? I can’t wait for that day :).

  12. […] Mobile BI. Mobility will be a key theme of the conference. Help us drive strategy by attending a mobility microforum (Frankfurt Orlando). Find out how Dow Corning has delivered mobile BI to its employees with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPhone and iPad and RoamBI. Check out BusinessObjects Mobile, and try out the products yourself in the mobility area of the innovation campus (and you might even get a sneak peek at a bit of “augmented corporate reality”) […]

  13. […] Mobile BI. Mobility will be a key theme of the conference. Help us drive strategy by attending a mobility microforum (Frankfurt Orlando). Find out how Dow Corning has delivered mobile BI to its employees with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPhone and iPad and RoamBI. Check out BusinessObjects Mobile, and try out the products yourself in the mobility area of the innovation campus (and you might even get a sneak peek at a bit of “augmented corporate reality”) […]

  14. Damon Oehlman Avatar

    Great post Timo – and great to see the Layar platform used in a really clever way.

  15. […] reales con información Business Intelligence que podría estar contenida en ondemand.com. Timo Elliot lo explica con mayor detalle en su blog SAP Web 2.0 y también especula sobre posibles usos de esta […]

  16. […] vous recommande d’aller voir le billet sur le blog SAP web 2.0. Les photos de ce billet sont tirées du blog. Catégories:Business Intelligence (BI) […]

    1. Mayur Avatar
      Mayur

      this is really interesting….

  17. […] this video:Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo. (Cross-posted @SAP Web 2.0)Posted Under : Enterprise Tags Google SAP All Featured Web 2.0 by SAP BusinessObjects Nexus One […]

  18. […] saw a VERY cool page with excellent screenshots: SAP Augmented Corporate Reality Proof of Concept – http://www.sapweb20.com/blog/2010/02/sap-augmented-corporate-reality-proof-of-concept/ I also stumbled upon an interesting tweet: Recently more than 100 SAP clients switched from Oracle […]