SiliconANGLE » SAP

New SAP Products Coincide with Oracle Demands for IP Case

Maria Deutscher — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:56:34 +0000

Software maker SAP has announced a major boost to HANA, its in-memory analytics platform that has now been tailored to suit the SME market, thanks to two newly announced offerings.

The first addition to the company’s analytics portfolio is SAP HANA for SAP Business One, a smaller application that’s based on the solution, designed for easier use and runs on partner hardware. It’s also integrated with the SAP Crystal Reports software and will become available via resellers later in 2012, according to the company. The emphasis is on simplicity, which SAP hopes will help drive productive up for users.

The second new HANA-powered solution is referred to as the Edge edition. It’s built for the mid-market, specifically users of the Business-All-in-One software SAP offers, and has been built to deliver more value if bundled up with some of the other SAP solutions worldwide partners are offering. This is an early step towards realizing the vision of integrating HANA into SAP’s core portfolio, which is on the company’s list of long-term agendas.

On the short term, they still have a community portal update to sort out. The roll out of the new SAP Community Network was originally scheduled for last December, but has been delayed due to technical issues, and no updated ETA has been provided. A beta program has been running ever since. SAP’s Mark Yolton did however provide some new details in a recent blog post. The following tidbit rounds up what his team has achieved so far:

“To give you an idea of the amount of work completed already:

116 blocker/showstopper and critically important items have been resolved
163 high-priority items have been resolved
201 medium-priority items have been resolved
11 low-priority items have been resolved”

Yolton said that eight more eight blocker or show-stopper items need to be tweaked, as well as eight critically important items.

PCWorld’s Chris Kanaracus notes that SAP is trying to avoid the bad experience Oracle had after relaunching a buggy portal back in ’09, which seems rather appropriate considering that the latter is currently trying to reverse its own bad luck in a copyright lawsuit against SAP.

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In the same vein:

Google Loses in the Latest Development from the Oracle Java Case

Maria Deutscher — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:15:05 +0000

In Oracle’s legal department, the name of the game is copyright infringement. The software giant sued SAP – which, at least for the time being, did not get it the multi-billion dollar sum it has hoped to win – and the Google case isn’t going anywhere either.

This particular case against Google involves a claim that Android’s virtual machine is infringing Java copyrights, which Oracle gained with the acquisitions of Sun in 2010. There’s a lot of stake here; the sheer scale of the Android ecosystem means that Larry Ellison has a lot to gain, and that Google has a lot to lose.

The details of the legal proceedings and various stages of the trial set to be held in the court of Federal Judge William Alsup have been laid out last month, and yesterday The Register reported the latest twist in the plot. A US Court of Appeals panel decided not to overrule a second decision that allows Oracle to use an email sent by Google developer Tim Lindholm, which is a very notable development considering the contents of the message. This is what Lindholm wrote:

“What we’ve actually been asked to do (by Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin]) is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We’ve been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need.”

The message has been sent before Oracle began to take legal action against Google, and seems to confirm an acknowledgment of foul play by the latter. The search giant argued that the email is protected under attorney-client privilege, but it was dismissed for the following reason:

“The e-mail’s discussion is directed at a negotiation strategy as opposed [to a legal strategy]. The e-mail does not evidence any sort of infringement or invalidity analysis, wrote Judge Alan Lourie, one of the three members of the panel.

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In the same vein:

SAP Continues HANA Migration to SMB Application

Jeff Kelly — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:23:18 +0000

SAP Business One customers – mostly small and medium-sized businesses – will soon have access to new real-time analytic capabilities via HANA, SAP’s in-memory analytic engine.

The German company announced that it plans to release a “special product version” of HANA for Business One that will include real-time operational reporting capabilities built on Crystal Reports. Business One is an integrated ERP application for sales, CRM, financials and operations aimed at SMBs.

SAP also announced a new product, SAP HANA Edge edition, that is available only through resellers and is designed to support Business All-in-One, its mid-market ERP offering. SAP is urging resellers to bundle and sell at a discount SAP HANA Edge with SAP BusinessObjects Edge Business Intelligence software, according to the company.

Both moves are in-line with SAP’s stated intention to migrate its entire application portfolio to HANA. It’s particularly important for SAP to leverage HANA to support is SMB clients, which make up 80% of its customers.

SAP HANA is designed to quickly replicate and ingest structured data from SAP and non-SAP relational databases, applications, and other systems to support real-time analytics. For a primer on SAP HANA, click here.

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For the CFO – ERP in the Cloud [Infographic]

Alex Williams — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:07:53 +0000

NetSuite posted record earnings for the fourth quarter and 2011 fiscal year. The ERP SaaS provider had $64.1 million in revenues, representing a 23% increase over the prior year. Total revenue for the year was $236.3 million, a year-over-year increase of 22%.

NetSuite represents how fast the ERP SaaS market is growing. Here’s a summary put together by Louis Columbus on his blog, A Passion for Research. The numbers reflect the overall SaaS market and points to what we can expect to play out in the ERP SaaS market:

According to IDC, by 2015, about 24% of all new business software purchases will be of service-enabled software with SaaS delivery being 13.1% of worldwide software spending. IDC further predicts that 14.4% of applications spending will be SaaS-based in the same time period.

All the companies in the ERP space will put considerable attention into their channel and partner programs this year.

Matthew Weinberger of Talkin’ Cloud wrote this about NetSuite:

NetSuite’s overall channel grew 50 percent, with the North American channel growing 150 percent on its own. NetSuite CEO Zachary Nelson attributed that growth to the fact that its service provider and VAR partners took some time to get up to speed with the cloud, but in 2011 the switch was flipped. Nelson said he is counting on partners to continue to do well for NetSuite in 2012.

Here’s an infographic on the topic from the ERP Software Blog tailored specifically for CFOs:

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In the same vein:

SAP-Success Factors Merger Delayed by Legislators

Maria Deutscher — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:50:03 +0000

Business software maker SAP finalized an agreement to acquire cloud-based HR solutions provider Success Factors back in December last year. The deal and the details involved were announced towards the end of that month: SAP said it would pay $3.4 billion for Success Factors, which was then 52 percent higher than the valuation of the company based on its share price. That margin was dramatically shrunk the next trading day when investors realized their knowledge of the transaction.

The two companies worked thing out, but regulators have not. The merger was extended for the third time, now that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) decided that it will commence on a 45 day investigation into the acquisition. It’s set to end on May 5, and follows a 30-day initial review period.

“We’re working with CFIUS and hopeful we can conclude this process quickly,” Dever said. “We look forward to closing the transaction in the first quarter,” reports PCWorld.

Dever said he knew of nothing going awry with the merger, and pointed to SAP’s acquisition of Business Objects several years ago, which saw a similar delay while awaiting regulatory approval.”

Another thing that Success Factors shares with Business Objects is its significance for SAP. The latter could put its cloud technology and resources into good use as a part of a very extensive strategy to expand in this field, not to mention the HR software that fits in rather nicely with SAP’s BI portfolio and clients’ demands.

SAP is counting on Success Factors’ continual growth. Not long after the acquisition was announced we reported that the newly-added subsidiary will retain a sizable portion of its independence to be able to continue doing things as expected. One of the first moves was the $110 million buyout of Jobs2Web.

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HANA Chairman at the Center of SAP-Oracle Rivalry

Maria Deutscher — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:00:28 +0000

Oracle and SAP have been going at it for a long time now. The feud has extended beyond regular industry competition when the former sued the BI solutions maker for corporate espionage, a case that was eventually resolved without too much of an impact on SAP’s end.

The two IT giants are used to competing in the courtroom, as well as in the fast-evolving business intelligence space. And analytics is the name of the game today.

SAP chairman Hasso Plattner has contributed a great deal to the company’s growth, going back several decades. He was also the one who conceived and architected the development of HANA, SAP’s in-memory big data analytics platform that eliminated the need to store datasets on relational databases, such as the ones provided by Oracle.

WSJ’s Chris Lawton looked into the history of the project, which he rather accurately depicted as a gamble during the early stages of design.

“For his bet, Mr. Plattner decided to do an end run around SAP’s corporate research-and-development department with thousands of engineers.

Instead, he recruited a bunch of university students in this small city outside Berlin. Working in a converted East German railway building dubbed “the villa,” these T-shirt-clad 20-somethings built the prototype of Mr. Plattner’s new product.

“It’s not so easy to break out as a large company and do something radically different,” says Mr. Plattner. “At the university, you have the freedom.”

Plattner’s bet is already beginning to pay off. SAP has some big plans for HANA, which has seen stellar growth throughout the past few months. Most recently in Q4, sales of HANA beat expectations, and the company reported some strong overall earnings as well.

On the other hand, Oracle’s latest quarter results were not so positive. And in an effort to do some catching up, the DB firm has also – somewhat ironically – jumped on the big data bandwagon.

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SAP Acquires Datango to Invigorate Enterprise Training Portfolio

Maria Deutscher — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:10:03 +0000

SAP acquired Datango for an undisclosed amount, a maker of IT training solutions that the business software maker hopes will manage to stand out in a sleepy market.

Datango certainly has potential, a claim that SAP and several pundits are backing up. The company’s offerings provide a development environment for the creation of training material, documentation and support, in addition to providing a way of rolling out the program in a given organization.

Enterprise Applications Consulting’s Josh Greenbaum believes that SAP’s biggest challenge won’t have to do with the newly acquired Datango assets, but rather with the overall market attitude. Vendors have not been addressing companies’ needs adequately, and CIOs don’t consider training to be an area worthwhile investing in anymore.

“Despite the theoretical value that good training provides, training in the enterprise software world has been a colossal failure. It should come as no surprise that training budgets–as well-evidenced in SAP Education’s declining revenue–have been falling over the years as the awfulness of most training content has met the real problem of cost-justifying this awfulness.”

SAP will be taking on the market head-on by integrating Datango into its portfolio. Right Hemisphere, a company SAP acquired back in September, may be a candidate for Datango integration as well, considering that its visualization technology could add to Datango’s value proposition.

But the business software maker’s biggest buy in recent weeks was SuccessFactors. In December SAP announced that it has acquired the PaaS provider for $3.4 billion which, at the time, was a 52 percent premium. There seems to be plenty of justification though. SAP is pursuing growing markets such as the cloud, analytics and mobile to boost its bottom line, and SuccessFactors addresses at least two of these trends. The company has retained a lot of independence after the merger in order to stay on its current track.

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SAP Steps Up Analytics with Latest Acquisition

Maria Deutscher — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:28:42 +0000

SAP is moving in quickly to capture its share of the analytics market, and it seems retail is a particular area of interest for the business software maker. HANA, its in-memory big data appliance, has been steadily gaining momentum since launch, and the firm is fleshing out this strategy with new investments.

SAP announced at the NRF 101st Annual Convention & EXPO that it has acquired SAF AG, a name that stands Simulation, Analysis and Forecasting. The latter’s portfolio will be integrated into SAP Forecasting and Replenishment, a forecasting and analytics application for large-scale retailers. The newest version of the software has been demonstrated today.

Retailers will now be able to better manage their inventory thanks another automation layer on the distribution lever, and forecasting has also been improved thanks to new algorithms. In addition, overall visibility has been increased and there are more customization options available, all coming together with the rest of the SAP BI portfolio.

“We have taken the initiative to expand our retail portfolio to directly address this critical business need. When married to prediction analytics, SAP’s standardized processes will create one of the most comprehensive solutions for managing inventory and keeping consumers satisfied,” said Lori Mitchell-Keller, senior vice president and head of the Global Retail Industry Business Unit, SAP.

Mitchell-Keller is not the first exec that stressed the significance of analytics in his company’s vision. Sanjay Poonen, president and corporate officer of SAP Global Solutions outlined an ecosystem where HANA plays a key role, and where business intelligence is reshaped for the business user rather than for the IT department. This vision is shared by several other companies in the industry, though involving their own offerings, and has a lot of potential.

Global outreach

We’ve also learned that SAP is reshaping yet another element in its strategy – the Asian market. The new Asian Pacific headquarters has been set in Singapore; a research facility that will employ over 100 scientists.

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In the same vein:

SAP Beats Expectations, Hopes to Spirit Marketing with Open-Minded Exec

Maria Deutscher — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:16:55 +0000

Business software maker SAP had a strong fourth quarter, beating analysts’ expectations as well as its own. Revenue grew by 12 percent to 3.72 billion euros or $4.7 million, compared to the average sum that analysts predicted: 3.6 billion euros. Operating profit was up 10 percent this quarter, and even managed to lead to a serious decline in rival Oracle’s shares.

Breaking the numbers down, software sales rose 16 percent to 1.74 billion euros, while new license revenue grew by a marginal two percent to just over $2 billion. It’s also notable that HANA, SAP’s analytics soultions, was one of the offerings that has seen the most growth in Q4. The big data platform brought in about 160 million euros, or 60 percent more than what SAP itself has predicted for the quarter.

HANA is a big focus for the company. An SAP exec discussed his company’s vision around the product extensively, and outlined an ecosystem that consists of a new breed of BI apps all revolving around big data analytics.

“They outshone Oracle,” said Mirko Maier, an analyst at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart with a “hold” rating on SAP shares. “It’s a very positive statement, since they kept more than they promised and calmed investors after the disappointment at Software AG.”

SAP’s stock surged as high as 43.24 euros, up 4.3 percent, following the announcement. Shareholders seem to more or less agree with Maier’s opinion.

As the software maker is expanding into markets farther and farther away from the traditional BI world, namely the cloud, mobile and analytics, it has to reshape its public image and not just its offerings portfolio. That’s presumably why SAP hired Julie Roehm to serve as the new senior VP of marketing. Roehm has a history of creating lively ad campaigns and other means of generating more buzz, most notably, a scandal during her tenure at WalMart, not unlike the one stirred up by Oracle’s Mark Hurd.

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SAP’s Big Data Strategy Simplifies Analytics with HANA

Maria Deutscher — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:53:01 +0000

In an interview to Forbes, Sanjay Poonen, president and corporate officer of SAP Global Solutions, laid out his company’s vision for big data analytics. That vision is based mostly on HANA, the business software maker’s in-memory data muncher.

SAP’s strategy involved the convergence of three well-defined big data concepts: the economics that can be achieved by adding agility to the analytics process, empowering the user; analytics and the extraction of insight at scale; and lastly, the use of this insight in both internal and outbound decision making. What SAP is proposing is to mold these three categories into a single framework, which simplifies the analysis of all the flowing through the enterprise: whether structured, unstructured or transactional.

“Our view is that SAP HANA is breaking down the artificial boundary between transactional and analytical data processing with a single data foundation for managing enterprise data. There is an increasing convergence of transactional data and analytical data, to support the ‘3V’ characteristics of big data – volume, velocity and variety,” said Poonen.

This would all be accomplished using HANA, resulting in a great deal of abstraction. SAP is already working on getting its other apps to run directly on top of the analytics platform. There’s already a cloud-based version of the solution offered by the company, and it will soon be integrated with SAP Business by Design. Quite clearly, the cloud plays a big role in SAP’s plans for its platform, mainly when it comes to adding that agility.

SAP is one of several traditional vendors that have been focusing on analytics in the cloud, and the firm is doing some exploring in area much closer to the end user as well. Last month it said it would resell NetApp’s media analytics-as-a-service, and today it participated in the $53 million series D funding round of Lithium, a provider of social media analytics.

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