SAP enters the Cloud Platform

Enterprise software company SAP has announced it intends to launch its own Platform-as-a-Service and online applications store.

The new cloud-based direction for SAP data management software was announced at SAP’s recent SAP Influencer Summit in Santa Clara, California. SAP data management solutions were not previously based on a cloud computing model.

The new model will center around SAP’s on-demand applications suite, SAP Business ByDesign. The new Platform-as-a-Service will be based on BBD, but will allow SAP developers and clients to create and utilize on-demand applications, based in the cloud.

SAP intends to launch the new model in stages. A version of BBD designed for application development is expected to be released in January. After developers are brought on board, the online application store’s launch is currently planned for the first half of 2011.

Though this is the company’s first announcement of a PaaS offering, SAP data management solutions have already incorporated some cloud-based technology through a cloud-enabled version of SAP NetWeaver.

Source: WINSHUTTLE