Germany giant software company SAP has taken a step further into the cloud computing market when it unveiled its plans for SAP Hana Cloud, a next-generation cloud platform based on in-memory technology. The company also announced the first offerings based on the platform: the general availability of SAP NetWeaver Cloud, an open standards-based application service, and SAP Hana One, a deployment of SAP HANA certified for production use on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.
Vishal Sikka, an SAP executive boardmember, said that with SAP Hana Cloud, the company is paving the way for developers to build impactful applications in the cloud with embedded analytics and the massive speed of SAP Hana.
The announcement was made during this week’s TechEd 2012 held in Las Vegas. The company noted that SAP Hana One will be immediately available on the AWS Marketplace. This release follows the company’s cloud-computing agreement with Amazon Web Services last year to provide several SAP solutions on demand via AWS.
As for SAP, unveiling its cloud products will add to the German company’s ability to compete with Oracle and SalesForce.
Dubbed SAP Hana Cloud, the solution includes AppServices, which will allow developers to create next-generation applications using native SAP Hana, Java and other rapid-development services, and DBServices, which provides database-as-a-service in the cloud.
SAP is looking to help customers and partners build applications that meet the needs of the new reality—lightning fast, instant mobile access and deep analytics with a delightful user experience. The company stated that putting NetWeaver Cloud into the hands of developers is the first, far-reaching step toward that vision.
SAP focused on developing mobile-ready applications, since going mobile is core for its growth. The company has already stated that it relies on mobile to support its future growth with the aim of reaching 1 billion users by 2015. “We are going to achieve this goal through mobility,” said the company’s VP André Petroucic, during a press conference in São Paulo last March.
At that time, SAP said it was moving several applications toward becoming mobile-ready. “Mobile devices surpassed PC as equipment used to access data analysis, but it didn’t exceed yet the PC on creating data,” explained Petroucic, noting the next growth cycle will include using mobile devices to not only visualize information but also generate data.
With NetWeaver® Cloud, SAP expects that by using the open standards-based platform, its customers and partners will be able to build impactful applications across a wide range of industries and use cases. Mobile-ready Web and portal applications can be built to engage with a company’s mobile workforce, including customers, partners and employees.
The announcements are aligned with SAP plans. The company has targeted its efforts beyond traditional enterprise resource planning, moving toward mobile, big data and cloud computing, as RCR Wireless News previously reported.
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