SAP Pushes Into The Cloud Computing – Is It A Right Move?

SAP, a German Enterprise Software Solutions provider, takes it all to the cloud computing. It can even ruin its own business, in order to create a strong foundation for the new one!

SAP, which is well-known for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software applications, which are used to control the complex manufacturing, runs operate functions like Financials, or manage an organization’s entire system of supply. Earlier SAP has revealed HANA, a product that combines fast computing and data retrieval to more effectively analyze how well an organization is performing. The product has achieved immense success and the company has started saying that it is the FUTURE of an organization.

However, in a May month, the company has announced that it would offer HANA as a cloud-based product, offering companies with access for the cost of the license. But the prices were not revealed. SAP has successfully established a network of seven data centers across the different corners of the world to support its new venture, a company official said, and will start by deploying almost thirty thousand computers in the network.

Regarding this new endeavor, a company’s executive board, Mr. Vishal Sikka said that “we will do cloud-based ERP on a huge scale.” He further added that “At some point in the future, complex implementation should go away. All of our products are moving to HANA.”

SAP and other partner companies who are agreed to test the product, already possess 750 terabytes of data in the system, which enough to fill the 750 million good-sized blocks. The company is expecting to have twice that amount in the system by the end of the year 2013. However, SAP somehow managed to convince and gain the trust of big customers with cloud, which will make SAP a giant in the industry.

SAP is already running both cloud and SaaS (Software as a Service) projects, and all the credit goes to the two companies, Ariba and SuccessFactors. By pushing HANA to the cloud, SAP is moving much more into providing insights online, either directly to the customers or as a service to the end-users. Mr. Sikka further said that SAP served around 220 utilities across the world, who reaches around 2.5 billion customers. The utilities will enable customers to use HANA to model how much they are investing and finding ways to cut their bills.

The data analysis tool might be utilized to include real-time understanding of the online customers, financial risk analysis or quick insight into the geologic information for the energy companies, he further added.

If SAP follows through on a fast build out to the cloud, it would create some disputes with Amazon Web Services, which is currently an SAP partner. 

However, it is a great move by the company to provide tough competition to the Oracle, which is operating its own cloud services. 

So, would it be a boon for SAP or it will create issues? For this, we can just wait to see how this move from the SAP would help them reap the benefits of cloud computing…!

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