Below are some of the key points from IDG's Interview with Klaus Zimmer, SAP's president and chief executive officer of Northern Asia, who took charge of SAP's Chinese operations in 1997.

* For the software market we are on a stable platform. At SAP, we have close to 1,300 customers. That's quite substantial: 1,300 customers and 2,300 installations. The majority, of course, are smaller companies, but more than 400 are big companies.

* For the software market we are on a stable platform. At SAP, we have close to 1,300 customers. That's quite substantial: 1,300 customers and 2,300 installations. The majority, of course, are smaller companies, but more than 400 are big companies.

* They are well aware that IT can help, but they do not rely on IT for a competitive edge. They are mainly focused on labor-intensive manufacturing. They are sitting here and they do not see efficiency gains from the ERP [enterprise resource planning] system helping the bottom line.

* No Chinese software companies rising to become international competitors for SAP

* The whole education system is built on repetition: basically memorizing and repeating stuff. The system is not built on questioning things and having healthy disputes over issues. That's what you need.

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Prashanth Rai