German BI firm SAP is bolstering its CRM portfolio on the back of the industry’s growing interest in HANA.

To start, Dell announced a series of data center solutions built specifically to run SAP’s in-memory database. The offering is based on Dell PowerEdge R910 rack-mount servers, and it’s available in configurations that offer anywhere from 1 TB to 8 TB in capacity.

“We chose Dell’s appliance for SAP HANA because our customers wanted faster access to supply chain data to help them increase efficiency and make better decisions,” said Nikolaj Schmitz, IT Manager, Gesellschaft für Information und Bildung (G.I.B). “We now get access to data in seconds and, like Dell’s new scale-out solutions, it delivers the power and stability to maximize the performance of business-critical SAP software environments.”

Michael Dell is reportedly working on privatizing his enterprise, and a strong foothold in the analytics market is likely part of his vision for “Dell 2.0,” a term coined by SiliconAngle founder John Furrier to describe the rationale behind the move.

SAP, meanwhile, is working on strengthening its core product line. Last week the company announced the acquisition of Ticket-Web, a German firm that develops software for event promoters. Its line-up consists of two offerings: a multi-lingual ticketing system called Entree Tickets, and a specialized customer relationship management program designed to supplement to the solution.

By incorporating Ticket-Web’s IP into its portfolio, SAP is gaining an edge over the competition in a niche, nonetheless significant market.

A willingness to actively pursue growth opportunities is what made last quarter a period of double- and triple-digit gains for the vendor, which is now expanding in all directions at once. This strategy is proving to be rather successful analytics, cloud and mobile were among SAP’s fastest growing segments in Q4 2012.