SAP is setting the stage for building a platform with SAP HANA at its core with capabilities for its in-memory technology across third party applications including TIBCO, Tableau and Jive Software.

The news came today at the SAP Influencer Summit with Vishal Sik describing HANA as the engine for data flowing seamlessly to and from memory, making it clear that SAP is increasingly aggressive about becoming a leading database supplier. That puts it squarely in competition with Oracle and its almost imaginary “Exalytics,” technology. (Check out Dennis Moore’s post for sources about SAP HANA. Good summary.)

The story about SAP HANA is very real, demonstrated in the extension of its in-memory technology to third parties:

TIBCO: SAP is working with TIBCO on real-time collaboration and analytics solutions, tibbr and TIBCOSpotfire. The goal is to reduce latency with real-time analysis provided by HANA.

Tableau Software: The data visualization company is now offering a connector to SAP HANA for real-time visualizations.

Jive Software: SAP HANA is now in production with Jive’s collaboration software. Jive is in the testing phase but plans to use HANA as a technique for analytics on enterprise social data.

SAP also announced partnerships with Ufida, Asia Pacific’s largest local management software vendor.

SAP is making a strong case for becoming a leading database vendor here at the SAP Influencer Summit. There is an extensive roadmap we can get into later. But one thing is certainly true. SAP HANA is not imaginary.