UPDATE 1-SAP says business not worsened since October

*Co-CEO Apotheker says 'We continue to move ahead'

*Apotheker says encouraged by intl govt response to crisis

*SAP shares off 3.8 percent in Frankfurt, before comments

By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK, Nov 21 (Reuters) - SAP AG's (SAPG.DE) business has been stable since late October when the software giant cut its outlook, a top executive said on Friday, defying signs of a worsening global economy.

"It hasn't gotten any worse," SAP co-Chief Executive Leo Apotheker said during a panel discussion in New York. Later he added in an interview: "There's business out there. We continue to move ahead."

The comments by SAP, the world's biggest maker of business management software, are the latest glimmer of optimism in the global tech sector during the financial crisis.

Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N), the No. 1 PC maker, reported stronger-than-expected results on Tuesday, as did software maker Salesforce.com Inc (CRM.N) and Dell Inc (DELL.O), the world's No. 2 PC maker, on Thursday.

Jefferies & Co analyst Horacio Zambrano said Apotheker's comments were a good sign. "This is a positive comment. This is a good first indicator of how sales might look in Q4 of this year," he said.

When SAP released results on Oct. 27, the German company scrapped its 2008 revenue outlook and cut its operating margin forecast, saying the global economic crisis was hurting demand for its business software, which companies use to manage tasks from accounting to sales and manufacturing.

Apotheker said the economy remains rough and that he assumes there will be a recession in 2009, but he was encouraged by the unprecedented international government coordination to address the financial crisis.

"There's a real storm out there. It's pretty bad. It's basically driven by a shortage of liquidity. It happens to be a global problem," he said, reiterating comments he and other company executives made when SAP released earnings last month.

Zambrano said it was encouraging to hear the weakening in SAP's business had halted because the company previously told investors conditions had worsened between Oct. 6 and Oct. 27, when it released results for the third quarter ended Sept. 30.

SAP and other technology companies have said business fell off a cliff in the last half of September after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other top-tier financial services firms.

That, along with the credit crunch, caused companies to hold off on big-ticket technology purchases including software.

But Apotheker said on Friday he does not know where the market is headed.

"I don't know how bad it's going to be," he told analysts, customers and reporters in New York. "Sometimes you wonder if there's some masochistic streak in talking about recessions."

Investors will get a better sense as to where technology spending is going when SAP rival Oracle Corp (ORCL.O) releases results next month. Its current quarter ends Nov. 30.

SAP shares fell 3.8 percent in Frankfurt on Friday, while Oracle shares rose 6.4 percent in Nasdaq trade amid a broad rally in U.S. stocks prior to Apotheker's comments. (Reporting by Sinead Carew; Writing by Jim Finkle; Editing by Gary Hill)