SAP SAYS U.S. SALES ARE STRONG, ACQUIRES TOPMANAGE

SAP SAYS U.S. SALES ARE STRONG, ACQUIRES TOPMANAGE    Werner Brandt, the chief financial officer of SAP AG, a German software provider, said Wednesday in London that SAP’s U.S. first-quarter sales were strong, and that his company had not detected weakness in its Asian markets.
   Stefan Gruber, a SAP spokesman in New York said that about 51 percent of SAP’s 2001 sales of 7.34 billion euros, ($6.42 billion) originated in Europe, 28 percent in the United States, and slightly more than 10 percent in the Asia Pacific region.
   SAP also announced its acquisition of TopManage, an Israeli software firm, which will assist SAP in developing software, using its mySAP.com suite of Web-based products that will cover accounting, purchasing, logistics, and managing customer relationships.
   “The intent is to extend the range of our software for small and medium-sized businesses,” Gruber said. Previously, SAP has concentrated on developing multi-million-dollar client server systems for large companies.