June 25, 2012
SAP’s Cloud Strategy for 2012- 2013
Whereas every vendor has a cloud strategy, many people keep asking what the SAP cloud has got to offer. For mid-sized businesses, SAP has got Business ByDesign which is a SaaS based fully integrated ERP application that is available on demand. SAP is therefore likely to respond to the requirement by large enterprises for on-premise + cloud offering.
For now, SAP wants to help customers to manage their transformation to virtualised environments. It is currently focusing on rolling out line-of-business applications like HR to the SAP cloud.
A project with an internal code name of 'project Titanium' will provide the capability for on-premise + cloud and is expected next year. This will allow ERP applications that are used on large enterprises to stay on-premise while specific applications such as sales force automation or HR will move to the SAP cloud. This is the main reason why in December of 2011, SAP acquired SuccessFactors which has a cloud based HR application as well as over 3500 customers.
All indications are that SAP will eventually merge its SuccessFactors as well as OnDemand units to ultimately create a common brand for line-of-business applications and perhaps retain the brand Business ByDesign. Therefore, SAP NetWeaver and whatever else will come out of project Titanium will most likely provide the technical foundation required by all these applications. This would therefore complete SAP's on-premise + cloud strategy.
However, SAP has got to move fast enough because it is already starting to feel the heat from smaller competitors such as Workday Netsuite and Salesforce.com which also offer cloud-based business applications for ERP, HR, CRM and sales force automation among others. To ensure it stays ahead of its competitors, SAP has unified its NetWeaver BPM tools and its NetWeaver process integration into one integrated package referred to as NetWeaver process orchestration.
SAP cloud is also looking to build custom applications. Given the growing interest in PaaS, SAP is responding to this need with a Java-based solution (J2SE standard). This will push SAP into the PaaS club that has members like Google and Microsoft. Once this solution is available, a user will be able to point an instance in the cloud to the back end, establish the back-end elements that they need and then bring them back into the cloud. With SAP doing the integration, customers will therefore only need to build the application in the cloud. This platform will be supported by SAP's HANA in-memory computing solution.
There is no doubt that the SAP cloud is going to be an important focus in the years ahead as it is doing everything to ensure that it stays ahead of its competitors.
For now, SAP wants to help customers to manage their transformation to virtualised environments. It is currently focusing on rolling out line-of-business applications like HR to the SAP cloud.
A project with an internal code name of 'project Titanium' will provide the capability for on-premise + cloud and is expected next year. This will allow ERP applications that are used on large enterprises to stay on-premise while specific applications such as sales force automation or HR will move to the SAP cloud. This is the main reason why in December of 2011, SAP acquired SuccessFactors which has a cloud based HR application as well as over 3500 customers.
All indications are that SAP will eventually merge its SuccessFactors as well as OnDemand units to ultimately create a common brand for line-of-business applications and perhaps retain the brand Business ByDesign. Therefore, SAP NetWeaver and whatever else will come out of project Titanium will most likely provide the technical foundation required by all these applications. This would therefore complete SAP's on-premise + cloud strategy.
However, SAP has got to move fast enough because it is already starting to feel the heat from smaller competitors such as Workday Netsuite and Salesforce.com which also offer cloud-based business applications for ERP, HR, CRM and sales force automation among others. To ensure it stays ahead of its competitors, SAP has unified its NetWeaver BPM tools and its NetWeaver process integration into one integrated package referred to as NetWeaver process orchestration.
SAP cloud is also looking to build custom applications. Given the growing interest in PaaS, SAP is responding to this need with a Java-based solution (J2SE standard). This will push SAP into the PaaS club that has members like Google and Microsoft. Once this solution is available, a user will be able to point an instance in the cloud to the back end, establish the back-end elements that they need and then bring them back into the cloud. With SAP doing the integration, customers will therefore only need to build the application in the cloud. This platform will be supported by SAP's HANA in-memory computing solution.
There is no doubt that the SAP cloud is going to be an important focus in the years ahead as it is doing everything to ensure that it stays ahead of its competitors.