"They handle data extremely well . . . they are the best in the industry," Vitelli says. "But it's really hard to get a document out of the system. You can get data reports out reasonably well, but in terms of combining data into a document that people can read and print and send around, it's really difficult."

Documents printed from SAP applications can have a "1970s vintage" feel to them--no logos, Courier font, etc. SAP realized that PDF could help its users make customized documents on the fly that print well, Vitelli says, and it also add another dimension to their workflows: interactive forms.

So last year, they formed the Adobe-SAP Alliance, in which both companies have devoted resources to work together to integrate PDF into SAP software at the engineering level.

Vitelli says, "We're working with SAP to basically bake PDF into SAP's next product release" at the application-services level. In essence, the CRM applications, the databases and any other SAP applications will be able to access basic PDF services--sort of the way Mac users can chuck out a PDF from any application by accessing Mac OS X's PDF-generating engine.

That capability will come as part of the SAP package, and Adobe hopes to have a pilot program off the ground by year-end, which will showcase PDF as part of the SAP foundation layer.

While no official software announcements have been made yet, there will be other software SAP customers can purchase from Adobe to even further integrate PDF into their systems.

"The details of the business model are still confidential," Vitelli says. "There will be a lot of great stuff customers will just get when they buy SAP, and there will be things that customers will pay for that will give them higher levels of value beyond what's free."

The SAP deal--and similar ones with business software from IBM, Documentum, and others that compete with SAP--clearly help get Acrobat and PDF further into the enterprise, Vitelli says.

SAP's 20,000 customers include 10% of the Global 2,000 largest, and the company has aggressive plans to get into more firms. Since the software is a whole system that helps automate processes and workflows--not just one application--it sort of takes root in an enterprise. And soon, it will bring PDF with it.

Although it's still very early in the Adobe-SAP relationship to know for sure, there might be space for innovative, opportunistic third-party PDF developers to share the wealth as the market opens up and create their own software to augment the business-management process.

"By far, they're the market leader in enterprise resource management," Vitelli says. "If you look at the overall pie, in terms of the sheer number of documents that can possibly be created using these software systems, SAP would be nearly half 43%, so this is a big win, relative to our goal of PDF in the enterprise."