SAP Software Head Embarks on Cloud Shift to Catch Rivals
August 7, 2014
Grazed from BusinessWeek. Author: Aaron Ricadela.
SAP SE’s software chief may have one of the toughest jobs in the technology industry: dragging the IT operations of 45,000 businesses into the era of cloud computing. Bernd Leukert, a 20-year company veteran, was promoted to the executive board after the sudden departure of chief technology officer Vishal Sikka in May. Now Leukert is breaking with his predecessor’s focus on fighting Oracle Corp. (ORCL:US) in the database market, and is responding to customers of its market-leading enterprise software who want a clear path for moving their applications to cloud-based systems.
“There is confusion,” Leukert, 47, said in an interview at SAP’s headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. “There’s no debate anymore in the IT industry that the cloud will be the preferred consumption model,” he said, referring to the shift toward delivering software via the Internet instead of installed on clients’ servers. “A road map is something we owe the market.”…
SAP, projected to report 17.4 billion euros ($23 billion) in sales this year, supplies a sophisticated palette of software — some 400 million lines of code — that lets companies such as BMW, Coca-Cola Co. (KO:US) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:US) manage everything from sales and marketing to manufacturing and finance…
Read more from the source @ http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-08-06/sap-software-head-embarks-on-cloud-shift-to-catch-nimbler-rivals