Newsbyte: SAPPHIRE® NOW Named Most Innovative Meeting of 2012 With Reach of More Than 500,000 Attendees

WALLDORF, Germany, Sept. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SAPPHIRE® NOW, the premiere customer event from SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), has been named "The Most Innovative Meeting of 2012" by BizBash Magazine. The magazine highlighted SAP's "always on" approach as the next step in hybrid event design. SAPPHIRE NOW beat out the well-regarded TED event to take the title.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110126/AQ34470LOGO)

SAP's "always on" approach will reach over 500,000 physical and online participants globally from November 2011 through the upcoming SAPPHIRE NOW from Madrid in November 2012. This time span includes SAPPHIRE NOW from Madrid in 2011, China SAPPHIRE in November 2011 and July 2012 and SAPPHIRE NOW from Orlando in 2012. Global participants continue to access content and contribute to conversations via www.sapphirenow.com, YouTube and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Weibo and Youku. Social media impressions globally have reached approximately 1.2 billion and continue to grow daily.

"While some vendors engage in a battle of words over the number of people who attend their events, SAP's focus has been on attendee experience and highly-engaging content," said R. "Ray" Wang, principal analyst and CEO, Constellation Research. "The award shows the approach is working."

"SAP brings the same focus on innovation to our event strategy as we do to our customers, products, and solutions," explained Jonathan D. Becher, chief marketing officer, SAP. "We design our events around what our attendees want to hear and recruit presenters from our customers and partners. The attendee feedback, the business results and the award validate our approach."

To learn more about SAPPHIRE NOW, view the "always on" content or to register for future events, visit www.sapphirenow.com. For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @sapphirenow.

Media Contact:
Jim Dever, +1 (610) 661-2161, [email protected], EDT

SOURCE SAP AG