In an endeavor to help its partners and widen its reach, SAP Australia has launched its worldwide Extended Business Program into the local market.

The program lets a reseller or integrator partner to become a Master Value Added Reseller and construct a network of friends to supply extra potential as well as expand its geographic or vertical reach.

SAP chairman Hasso Plattner announced that he will not meddle with the German business software maker's day-to-day operations despite initiating a bigger role in restructuring the company, he told a German magazine.

SAP AG Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker, who resigned unexpectedly, told employees that he did what was best for the company during a “brutal economic crisis”. Apotheker, 56, had struggled with both customer and employee discontent.

Sales tumbled at SAP last year, while Oracle Corp. claimed market-share gains.

On Sunday, Leo Apotheker, the Chief Executive of SAP AG unexpectedly and abruptly resigned, as the giant software company of Germany announced that it would be returning to a dual-CEO structure.

With Google launching the preview mode of its communication and collaboration platform, Wave, to nearly 100,000 users on Wednesday, the new online tool from Google has attracted the interest of a number of developers – including biggies like SAP Research and salesforce.com.

The recession-hit weak demand has forced software giant SAP AG to reduce its staff by 6.7 percent this year - the company that had 52,000 employees in September, will be left with 48, 5000 employees after the layoffs.