SAP & Microsoft To Boost Cloud Capabilities For Clients

SAP SE (DE:SAPG) (TO:SAP) has strengthened its partnership with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by making three key announcements at the 28th annual SAPPHIRENOW conference. The companies announced plans to provide extensive support to the SAP HANA platform on Microsoft Azure, integrate Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions and also boost management and security for SAP Fiori apps. The announcements, which come after two years since the companies entered into a partnership, are set to improve cloud capabilities for clients.

Inside the Headlines

As per the first announcement, SAP HANA, along with the company’s star performer S/4HANA, is now certified to conduct development, test and production related work on Microsoft Azure. Given the commendable success story of early adopters of this offering which include Coats, Rockwell Automation (NYSE:ROK) and Nortek, SAP believes the latest upgrade will help organizations deliver mission-critical applications and data analytics with paramount security and compliance measures.

Coming to cloud service integrations, cloud offerings from SAP including Concur, Fieldglass, SuccessFactors and Ariba will be combined with Office 365 communications, collaboration, calendar, documents to enhance customer experience. The companies have also stated that the new integrated solutions will be commercially available from the third quarter of 2016.

Finally, to improve the flexibility in cloud networks, SAP is allowing customers to construct mobile hybrid SAP Fiori apps on an open standards plug-in framework. Moreover, the apps built on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform can be managed and secured with Microsoft Intune. This offering is also expected to be launched commercially in the third quarter of 2016.

To Conclude

SAP and Microsoft are certain that their recent endeavors will significantly boost organizations’ ability to promote innovations on cloud and seize new business opportunities. SAP has for long been pursuing an open ecosystem strategy whereing it supports its partners through continual co-innovations, to stave off competition. Earlier this month, SAP teamed up with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to develop corporate apps for iPhones.

We believe partnerships with such leading technology companies will accelerate SAP’s cloud business significantly. It appears that the company’s efforts toward boosting its Internet of Things (‘IoT’) platform and cloud business through strategic partnerships are paying off and will expand its customer base further.

SAP currently holds Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Another favorably ranked stock in the industry is CommVault Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLT) that sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).