SAP spins vision of innovation at SAP World

SAP shared its vision for mobile computing, social networks and cloud computing at its annual customer and partner event in London today, reinventing itself as a company of innovation.

The firm used SAP World to firm up its product roadmap and satisfy customers wanting more information on how the traditionally on-premise stalwart would innovate to keep pace with competitors such as Salesforce.com.

SAP’s new confidence in providing clarity on how it is responding to the cloud computing revolution sweeping the IT industry stems in part from its purchase of Sybase in May last year, which has enabled SAP to strengthen its mobile offerings.

The company also recently bagan the wide-scale deployment of Business ByDesign, its range of on-demand software, and launched the HANA high-performance analytic appliance software to give customers fast access to business information. 

SAP UK managing director Tim Noble revealed during the SAP World keynote that the company intends Business ByDesign to be used by all of its customers, including big businesses.

The product was launched in 2007, but technical difficulties meant that it was ready for customers to use only last year. Until now, SAP has generally marketed Business ByDesign as software for smaller businesses.

"Business ByDesign has been unbelievably successful among midsize businesses, but it can also be used in subsidiaries of large companies that don’t want to implement large on-premise projects," said Noble.

"The last research we did showed that, by 2013, 80 per cent of software will be in the cloud. We want to be clear that we are giving customers choice: you can use SAP on-premise or in the cloud."