SAP taps who's who of business application software

IDG News Service - Several top names in the who's who of business application software have abandoned Oracle Corp. and Siebel Systems Inc. to join arch rival SAP AG.
After dropping hints last week, Walldorf, Germany-based SAP confirmed today that it has lured more than 200 people, including a handful of top executives, away from its competitors. The new hires reflect a dramatic shift in the movement of talent in Silicon Valley, the company said in a statement.
The exodus of talent at Oracle comes as the database giant works to incorporate products and people acquired through its purchase in January of PeopleSoft Inc. (see It's official: Oracle closes on PeopleSoft acquisition).
Siebel has responded to its outward flow of talent by launching an employee retention program. Even so, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company has lost a vital executive to SAP: Nimish Mehta, who was responsible for Siebel's high-growth Customer Data Integration division. In his new role as senior vice president of enterprise information management at SAP, Mehta will create new product strategy for products focused on structured and unstructured data.
Before joining Siebel, Mehta had worked at Oracle for more than a decade.
Also joining SAP from Siebel are Richard Campione and Bob Stutz. Campione was formerly in charge of Siebel's financial services and public sector business. At SAP, he will be responsible for industry solution marketing. Stutz, who was in charge of 21 vertical product lines at Siebel, will lead SAP's strategic application development and will be responsible for the analysis, design, coding and testing of new software and of enhancements and corrections to existing software.
Like Siebel, Oracle has also lost three top executives to SAP: Mike Mayer, Dan Rosenberg and John Zepecki.
Formerly in charge of driving large IT infrastructure projects funded by development organizations such as The World Bank, Mayer will assume a similar role at SAP. Rosenberg, who headed Oracle's research and development for usability design, will be responsible for user interface development for all SAP products, including application user interfaces and the design of the group's NetWeaver integration platform.
Zepecki will be in charge of developing SAP's xApps systems and supporting the group's composite application initiatives. At PeopleSoft, which is now owned by Oracle, he was responsible for the company's enterprise performance management product line and financial management portal systems.
Other new SAP hires include Doug Merritt and Gordon Simpson. Merritt, who was formerly with Quest Software Inc. and PeopleSoft, will be in charge of providing enhancements for the mySAP Business Suite, among other tasks. Simpson, aformer chief technology officer at BEA Systems Inc., will take over as vice president of SAP's applied technology, product and technology group.
In January, SAP was able to lure George Paolini away from Sun Microsystems. At Sun, Paolini made a name for himself by helping build the company's Java development community.