SAP customers have long wanted an easy way to connect SAP applications to outside environments. Now they have one.

SAP today announced SAP NetWeaver Gateway, a new framework that greatly simplifies the task of connecting SAP ERP, CRM, BI and other applications to non-SAP systems. It taps REST, SOAP and the Open Data Protocol, or OData, to allow non-SAP developers to link SAP applications to social media applications, cloud-based data sources, and mobile devices.

There is a lot of pressure building on enterprises to take advantage of emerging technologies like social networks and mobile devices, said David Brutman, director of Information Worker Marketing at SAP Labs. Gateway provides legacy SAP customers a “smooth way to bring innovation into your landscape” and make better use of existing SAP deployments, he said

An early beta customer, Asian Paints, for example, is using Gateway to pull potential sales leads from Facebook and Twitter into its SAP CRM application. Sales associates can then use that data to identify new sales prospects.

In addition to social networks, .net and HTML developers could also use Gateway to connect SAP systems to Microsoft SharePoint or Adobe Flex-based applications, according to Brutman.

Connecting non-SAP applications and data sources to SAP systems has long been difficult for developers that lacked intimate SAP programming knowledge, acknowledged Brutman. Gateway makes it possible for SAP to engage these non-SAP developers, he said, and provides a “more compelling ways for companies to engage with customers.”

By making it easier customers connect to outside environments, Gateway addresses both SAP’s application and data integration restraints, and should helps customers get more value from years of investment in SAP technologies.

And it fits neatly into SAP Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe’s goal to bring simplicity to customers increasingly complex IT environments.