SAP AG announced Thursday the development of a new cross application and the shipment of its first cross application at the company's Sapphire customer conference and trade show in Lisbon, Portugal.

The cross application under development, SAP xApp Employee Productivity (SAP xEP), will provide employees with an environment for self-service and direct collaboration, the company said in a statement.

SAP xApp Resource and Program Management (SAP xRPM), the company's first cross application, will ship in December 2002, it said.

Cross application software is a new breed of applications aimed at improving business processes by offering end-to-end processes across heterogeneous systems. These new applications sit on top of existing, disparate applications and "not on the database," said Hasso Plattner, co-chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of SAP. "This is a real change, which provides greater flexibility."

SAP xApps build on the open mySAP technology software, which ties together heterogenous IT infrastructures, thus unifying and aligning people, information, and processes across technical and organizational boundaries.

SAP is working closely with the consultancies Accenture Ltd. and PricewaterhouseCoopers to tailor and deliver SAP xApp to customers.

The German firm is also encouraging other companies to develop cross applications, said Peter Graf, vice president of market strategy at SAP.

SAP xRPM is designed to help business mangers and teams execute on corporate strategies by giving them control over a portfolio of projects and resources. The application, according to SAP, can integrate tightly with mySAP.com software, as well as third-party products, such as Microsoft Corp. Project, PeopleSoft Inc. HCM and Financials and Oracle Corp. E-business Suite.