ROUND ROCK, Texas----Fast checkout lanes, an increased ability to meet customer demands and improved inventory management are some of the benefits retailers can experience as a result of an alliance announced today between SAP and Dell NASDAQ:DELL.

Under the agreement, Dell will team with SAP to offer an integrated point-of-sale POS store solution, enabling retailers to utilize SAP for Retail software solutions on Dell’s Retail OptiPlex^TM 745 POS systems and Dell PowerEdge^TM servers. The combined Dell/SAP retail offering is aimed at providing retailers a complete, cost-efficient, standards-based business solution.

Enhanced POS features -- including accurate and timely customer demand data, real-time inventory visibility and integrated returns processing -- combined with seamless connections into core merchandising and supply chain processes, will help enable retailers to better track purchase behaviors, identify buying trends and process customer transactions more rapidly.

This collaboration will help allow retailers to more efficiently run their business operations at a lower cost, benefiting both merchants and customers.

“There are many factors that go into the refresh of a retailer’s IT environment,” said Terry Klein, vice president of Dell’s Advanced Systems Group. “This partnership will enable retailers to focus on evaluating complete solutions that help them better serve their customers, rather than making separate hardware and software decisions.”

“Retail is a fragmented point solution market that will follow other industry trends of consolidation and the combination of two leaders within this industry can alleviate many of the challenges our joint customers wrestle with daily,” said Jim Mattecheck, senior vice president and general manager, Retail, SAP America Inc. “We aim to provide a safe investment and a solution that will grow with the retailer and is based on the latest in technology and business process innovation.”

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