SAP Unveils Accelerated Cloud Strategy

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May 15, 2012
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SAP Unveils Accelerated Cloud Strategy

New Focus on Cloud Solutions to Help Customers Better Manage People, Money, Customers and Suppliers; Adds Critical Components to SuccessFactors BizX Suite to Deliver Industry's Most Comprehensive and Global Suite of Applications

ORLANDO, Fla., May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today unveiled its accelerated cloud strategy by announcing cloud solutions for four lines of business to manage people, money, customers and suppliers. These are planned to be offered in a consistent way and seamlessly integrated into enterprise resource planning (ERP) business software. SAP will leverage the market strengths of SuccessFactors, an SAP company and one of the fastest growing cloud providers in the world, and its founder and CEO Lars Dalgaard. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® NOW, being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012.

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"As a long-time customer of both SAP and SuccessFactors, we see this strategy as a clear way forward, harnessing and streamlining the best of what each side brings to the table," said Troy Barnett, director of HR Processes, Under Armour. "SAP has the process and industry expertise that we rely on every day to run our business, and SuccessFactors gives us cloud applications that our teammates love to use. With the resources at SAP's disposal coupled with Lars' vision and passion, we expect great things from this combination."

"The cloud is a completely new paradigm. Our team of 5,000 will provide customers and all their people with rock-solid access to best-in-class business functionality for people, money, customers and suppliers," said Dalgaard, SAP Executive Board member. "They aim for the highest level of reliable security in the cloud. We will provide integration among the cloud solutions and external content out-of-the-box with on-premise business software. We are passionate about bringing creative and innovative first-in-class applications to market with a beautiful user experience."

The New Cloud Powerhouse

Since the close of SAP's acquisition of SuccessFactors in February 2012, the combined teams immediately joined forces to begin delivering on an accelerated cloud strategy. SuccessFactors is a pioneer in the cloud and a clear leader in the human capital management (HCM) space, while SAP has deep and unmatched end-to-end business process know-how across on-demand and on-premise solutions, hard-won from 40 years of intellectual property, experience and customer success. Together, and with Dalgaard at the helm of the combined Cloud business unit, SAP is now investing more than 5,000 people dedicated to designing, building and delivering beautiful cloud solutions that enable people to love work again and perform at their best. The newly formed Cloud business unit, serving more than 17 million users, will be focused on four solution areas aimed at helping customers manage their most business-critical assets and relationships.

SAP plans to deliver its multitenant cloud solutions as a loosely-coupled suite of best-of-breed applications. The company plans to offer customers the choice and flexibility to adopt these applications at their own pace, as their business needs evolve. When used together, these applications aim to offer the value of a single solution with a consistent user and customer experience, process and data integrity. The cloud portfolio will focus on solutions that help SAP customers better manage:

    --  People: SAP announced the addition of its industry-leading global
        payroll software as a cloud-based offering integrated with
        SuccessFactors' core human resources (HR) solution, Employee Central.
        The solution is planned to be available in 10 countries, and is today
        leveraged by a number of strategic partners as a platform to offer
        business process outsourcing (BPO) services. SAP has more than 200
        resources throughout every region in the world to help ensure local
        regulations and complexities are addressed and updated within its
        payroll solution. With the addition of global payroll to the
        SuccessFactors talent management and core HR solutions, SAP intends to
        offers the most comprehensive suite of applications in the cloud to help
        customers manage their people more effectively along end-to-end HR
        processes, from strategy to execution.
    --  Money: With decades of deep expertise in global localization of
        sophisticated financial applications, SAP announced the planned
        availability of the SAP® Financials OnDemand solution, targeted for
        large enterprise customers to manage their core financials as well as
        order-to-cash and invoice-to-pay processes. It is planned to be
        integrated with SuccessFactors' core HR solution Employee Central. In
        addition, SAP intends to deliver a new release of the SAP® Travel
        OnDemand solution with additional integration and mobile capabilities,
        including the ability to capture and process expenses directly from a
        mobile device.
    --  Customers: The SAP® Sales OnDemand solution, with new innovations now
        released quarterly, goes beyond the outdated capabilities of existing
        cloud-based sales force automation tools by delivering new marketing and
        social selling capabilities, new configurability and customization
        tools, and new integration to on-premise SAP® Business Suite software,
        including the SAP® Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM)
        application. SAP is now broadening its portfolio of CRM solutions to
        help companies leverage the full power of social networks. SAP today
        also announced the general availability of the SAP® Social Customer
        Engagement OnDemand solution to help companies engage intelligently with
        their customers via social media such as Facebook and Twitter as part of
        their multichannel approach for both marketing and service
        professionals.
    --  Suppliers: Supplier interaction continues to be a key lever for
        customers. SAP intends to invest in the SAP® Sourcing OnDemand solution
        for strategic sourcing, supplier and contract lifecycle management
        integrated on premise with SAP Business Suite, as well as its business
        networks solutions, including the SAP® Information Interchange OnDemand
        solution, for networked-based invoice management and information
        exchange for the procure-to-pay process.
SAP Cloud Solutions Built With "Social, Mobile, Analytics-First" Approach

Harnessing the power of its mobile, collaborative and analytic expertise for the cloud, SAP cloud solutions can create synergies for customers to realize business value in entirely new ways. A beautiful and intuitive user interface (UI) enables people to easily navigate the system to get their work done more efficiently. Built-in social collaboration aims to help teams work together to achieve business goals faster-- whether across the globe or in the next cubicle. With these capabilities powered by the SAP HANA® platform, people can make better-informed decisions while integration with the existing portfolio of on-premise solutions from SAP allows for faster innovation across lines of business.

Social Collaboration Where People Work: In Every Application and Business Process

SAP continues to reinforce its social collaboration strategy with new people and data collaboration capabilities: analytics directly in social software for fact-based decision-making, social communities easily blended with formal training for increased learner engagement and an iPad application for collaboration on-the-go. Additionally, in less than two months, social capabilities have been activated for millions of users, letting them easily share and tap into the expertise of their colleagues, unlocking the value of social software.

Sameer Patel, a social software influencer who recently joined SAP, is driving the development of the next-generation social strategy at SAP. The goal is to combine the company's broad footprint in systems, data management and business processes with SuccessFactors' leadership and knowledge of cloud solutions to deliver social and collaborative capabilities in a way that accelerates process and business performance. SAP plans to announce further details in the coming months.

Mobile, Extensible, Powered by SAP HANA: Cloud Applications Using SAP and Third-Party Platform-as-a-Service

Across its rich portfolio of mobile cloud solutions, SAP announced today the planned availability of SAP NetWeaver Cloud as its unified platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering. It is intended to be powered by SAP HANA with application design and runtime capabilities, as well as a rich set of services that are planned to include security, mobile and collaboration. SAP today also reaffirmed its commitment to openness by announcing its partnership with leading third-party PaaS offerings, including VMware Cloud Foundry(TM), that customers will be able to use together with platform services from SAP NetWeaver Cloud to extend SAP solutions.

Integration of Hybrid Landscape Using SAP and Third-Party Integration-as-a-Service

SAP recognizes that for many of its customers, heterogeneous IT landscapes and deployments across on demand and on premise will continue to be the norm and it is crucial to provide integration to make such a hybrid solution landscape work. To address this need, SAP intends to deliver a cloud-based integration technology, comprised of on-demand solutions for process integration and data services, with out-of-the-box content to connect the loosely coupled line-of-business on-demand solutions to other SAP solutions whether on premise or on demand. For integration to third-party solutions, SAP plans to offer its own cloud-based integration technology and also plans to enable its vast ecosystem of partners, including solutions from Dell Boomi, IBM Cast Iron and Mulesoft.

SuccessFactors and SAP Run Better Together

Wasting no time, SuccessFactors implemented several key SAP cloud solutions internally in only six weeks. SuccessFactors, previously a user of multiple, disparate cloud applications, now boasts the title of world's largest implementation of SAP Sales OnDemand. In the weeks since the companies came together, SuccessFactors has also gone live with SAP Sourcing OnDemand for its strategic procurement management; SAP Travel OnDemand for expense and travel management of its U.S. and German employees; and the SAP Business ByDesign® solution, supporting finance and professional services processes.

In parallel, SAP will also use SuccessFactors BizX suite internally as its new HCM system. The use of Success Factors' cloud solution will simplify HR processes for managers and employees, help managers better align their daily management activities with the corporate strategy and provide the best tools for employees to take more control of their career development. Thirteen hundrend internal early adopters have been working with SuccessFactors since April with enthusiastic feedback about its ease of use and simplicity. The solution will be globally available on May 14 to every SAP employee.

Run Better: Full Business - Any Size - In the Cloud

SAP will continue to offer fully integrated suites in the cloud, with SAP Business ByDesign for mid-market customers via its reseller channels and for subsidiaries of large enterprise customers, as well as the SAP® Business One OnDemand solution served by certified SAP partners for smaller customers.

For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during SAPPHIRE NOW, visit the Events Newsroom.

SAPPHIRE® NOW

With SAPPHIRE® NOW, SAP offers its customers, partners and prospects even more opportunities to engage in dialogue with peers, participants and thought leaders around the globe. Being held in Orlando, Florida, May 14-16, 2012, this enhanced, real-time event connects attendees on site with global participants through state-of-the-art broadcast studios and an online experience that incorporates the latest social media and community functionality. Whether on site or online, participants can gain insight as to how SAP is delivering on its product strategy and helping organizations around the world to run better. For more information, visitwww.sapphirenow.com. Follow SAPPHIRE NOW on Twitter at @SAPPHIRENOW and visit the Events Newsroom atwww.events.news-sap.com.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device - SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 190,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of SuccessFactors) to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit http://www.sap.com.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

© 2012 by SAP AG. All rights reserved.

SAP and the SAP logo are registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects Software Ltd. Business Objects is an SAP company. Sybase and the Sybase logo are registered trademarks of Sybase Inc. Sybase is an SAP company. Crossgate is a registered trademark of Crossgate AG in Germany and other countries. Crossgate is an SAP company.

VMware and Cloud Foundry are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24

United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:
Dorit Shackleton, SAP, +1 (604) 889-7841, dorit.shackleton@sap.com, PDT

SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com

Andrea Meyer, SuccessFactors, + 1 (415) 370-7329, ameyer@successfactors.com, PDT

During SAPPHIRE NOW (from May 14 to 16), to speak with press contacts on site, please dial the SAP press room: +1 (610) 661-0469.

SOURCE  SAP AG

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SAP AG

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