Application and system – a worthless debate?

Application and system – a worthless debate?

Application and system – a worthless debate? Recently one of my friend who is also an ABAP developer , corrected me saying that SAP BI is a ‘system’ not an ‘application’. We debated about two minutes and finally I gave up admitting to his demand, since there wasn’t any point in winning an argument . His demand was that I should agree it is a system not an application. I got into thinking why we have a different view about it. I am a SAP Netweaver administrator and consultant. Both of us come from the engineering background in our education, me being an engineering degree in IT and my friend in Electronics. In unix concept a system software and application software is different. A system software is essential programs to run system,eg a kernal. Application software is application run on top of system eg: firefox. But I am aware that the sense of system is different in  our day to day life.

I think SAP BI is an application not a system.When I install it into a computer and make it ready to use for business it becomes a “system” . My friend think SAP BI is a system because it is not application server like Jboss or SAP NW webAS. SAP BI contains SAP webAS as well, but SAP BI is more than SAP NWAS. In my view, it is like this

Let me know your views.