Eric Duffaut, President SAP Global Ecosystem and Channels laid out in an interview given to Forbes just how his company plans to increase revenues from $17 billion in revenue in 2010 to $27.1 billion in 2015: making a lot of partnerships, and restructuring the existing ecosystem. New technologies such as the HANA analytics platform, mobile software and other offerings will be the center point of this strategy, and SAP’s partner ecosystem will be pushing it forward; or at least, that’s the plan.

“Now under the same umbrella, we have all partner types, all types of partnership engagements,” said Duffaut. “The fact is that many partners work with SAP in multiple ways. If we talk about the big one, let’s pick IBM for instance, IBM is a super big service partner for us with IBM Global Business Services. They are co-innovation and technology partners.”

SAP, a software giant lead by two co-CEOs, is all about this “co-development and co-innovation” growth process. The company’s channel sales shifted from seven percent back in 2005 to 20 percent in 2010 and 25 percent in the second quarter of this year.  Big players, such as IBM, Intel, Adobe and others that are working with a big market will play a big role in helping the  firm expand, and Duffaunt noted increased software sales are also beginning to translate into greater margins.

While its biggest partners are likely to account for a sizable chunk of channel sales on the long-term, the rest of the ecosystem will account for an equally significant part, if not a greater one. That’s why on the heels of SAP SAPhire 2011, the German business software maker announced it made some of the key offerings in the Sybase portfolio available to resellers worldwide.