Claus Wellenreuther (born 1935) is a German entrepreneur and the co-founder of the software company SAP SE.
[4] He then joined his former IBM colleagues Hasso Plattner, Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector and Klaus Tschira to found the software company Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung in Weinheim, which would later become the SAP AG.
Wellenreuther was primarily responsible for the architecture and the concept of the SAP R/2 financial accountancy module.
[5] Wellenreuther left the business in 1980 for health reasons and received a compensation of 1 million DM.
[6] The "deal among friends" was heavily criticized by DCW customers that had explicitly decided for an alternative to SAP.