SAP to buy Ticket-Web, a CRM tool for promoters of sports and entertainment events

IDG News Service - SAP plans to extend its CRM offering with the acquisition of Ticket-Web, a German specialist in online ticketing for sports and entertainment venues.

Ticket-Web has two main product lines: Entree Tickets and Entree CRM. Entree Tickets is a multilingual, multicurrency online ticketing system with Web services interfaces to other applications. Like a number of other ticketing platforms, it allows the sale of traditional paper tickets for postal delivery or collection at the box office, or for sending tickets electronically to mobile phones or for printing at home. Entree CRM operates together with Entree Tickets or independently to manage one-to-one marketing campaigns. It also offers bookkeeping, point-of-sale and contact management tools.

By combining Ticket-Web's systems with other SAP tools including ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) and financial management software, event promoters will be able to boost attendance and profitability by fine-tuning their pitch to individual customers, SAP said Thursday.

Even after the acquisition, Ticket-Web customers will still be able to link the system to back-ends other than SAP's, while SAP customers will be able to link their systems to any ticketing service they choose, the ERP vendor said.

Linking Ticket-Web's systems to its HANA in-memory database and real-time business analytics tools will allow event promoters to understand, in real time, how a fast-moving sales campaign is doing, SAP said. However, it's not clear what the financial advantages would be to the promoters of an event that is already selling out in hours or minutes.

On the other hand, feeding information from the ticketing system to SAP Business Suite, SAP Business ByDesign or SAP BusinessOne could enable improved management of sports and entertainment arenas, SAP said.

SAP intends that Ticket-Web staff to join SAP after the deal closes in the second quarter. Neither company immediately responded to questions about the value of the deal.

Peter Sayer covers open source software, European intellectual property legislation and general technology breaking news for IDG News Service. Send comments and news tips to Peter at peter_sayer@idg.com.