Adobe, Microsoft and SAP Announce New Open Data Initiative Details
Global Industry Partners Join Effort to Connect Data and Gather Powerful Insights Fueled by AI and Intelligent
Services
Today at Adobe Summit, the industry’s leading customer experience conference, Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) CEO Shantanu Narayen and
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) CEO Satya Nadella revealed additional details about the Open Data Initiative (ODI). As
originally announced last September, Adobe, Microsoft and SAP (NYSE:SAP) have embarked on a new approach to business data that will
help companies transform their customer experiences through real-time insights delivered from the cloud.
The three partners outlined a common approach and set of resources for customers in an initial announcement last September, with
the ambition of helping customers create new connections across previously siloed data, more seamlessly garner intelligence, and
ultimately better serve brands with an improved view of their customer interactions.
From the beginning, the ODI has been focused on enhancing interoperability between the applications and platforms of the three
partners through a common data model with data stored in a customer-chosen data lake. This unified data lake is intended to allow
customers their choice of development tools and applications to build and deploy services.
To improve that process, the three companies plan to deliver in the coming months a new approach for publishing, enriching and
ingesting initial data feeds from Adobe Experience Platform, activated through Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and
Office 365 and SAP C/4HANA, into a customer’s data lake. This will enable a new level of AI and machine learning enrichment to
garner new insights and better serve customers.
Unilever, a mutual customer and one of the early global brands to express support and excitement about the ODI, today announced
their intention to simplify a previously complex business outcome based on these data connections.
At Adobe Summit, Unilever is demonstrating how they plan to bring together disparate customer, product and resource data and use
AI-driven insights to help reduce their plastic packaging and encourage consumer recycling. By eliminating the silos of data,
Unilever will be able to tie inventory and plastics data into Adobe data to enhance customer experiences and encourage
participation.
To accelerate development of the initiative, Adobe, Microsoft and SAP also announced today plans to convene a Partner Advisory
Council consisting of over a dozen companies including Accenture, Amadeus, Capgemini, Change Healthcare, Cognizant, EY, Finastra,
Genesys, Hootsuite, InMobi, Sprinklr and WPP. These organizations span myriad industries and customer segments and believe
there is significant opportunity in the ODI for them to drive net new value to their customers.
“Our customers are all trying to integrate behavioural, CRM, ERP and other internal data sets to have a comprehensive
understanding of each consumer, and they’re struggling with the challenges of integrating this data,” said Stephan Pretorius, CTO
of WPP. “We’re excited about the initiative Adobe, Microsoft and SAP have taken in this area, and we see a lot of opportunity to
contribute to the development of the ODI.”
About Adobe
Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit
www.adobe.com.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge.
Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center
at http://news.microsoft.com.
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journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.
About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better.
From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work
together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services
enable more than 404,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For
more information, visit www.sap.com.
© 2019 Adobe Inc. All rights reserved. Adobe and the Adobe logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the
United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Stefan Offermann
Adobe
408-536-4023
sofferma@adobe.com
Microsoft Media Relations
WE Communications for Microsoft
425-638-7777
rrt@we-worldwide.com
Stacey Hoskin
SAP
816-337-7476
stacey.hoskin@sap.com
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