German company SAP has teamed up with Google to push its enterprise business applications onto Google’s cloud services, and will also be offering Google’s suite of business productivity apps to the 345,000 companies that use their services, it has been announced.
Speaking at the Google Cloud Next conference, SAP’s head of products and innovation, Bernd Leukert, claimed that the partnership would be a boon for the company’s customers – which includes 87% of the Forbes Global 2000. “We will offer enterprises the world’s best network, the fastest service, and the best platform for applications and analytics all in one stop,” he said.
What this means on a practical basis is that SAP will add Google Cloud support for SAP Hana, SAP Cloud and the company’s data management tools. Google Now Launcher support will also be added to Hana Express.
“With the size, scope, and scale of both our companies, we see a great opportunity to completely transform the way end-to-end business processes and enterprise software are run in the digital economy,” wrote Leukert in a blog post announcing the deal. “And this is only the start. With machine learning becoming increasingly important, SAP and Google will also collaborate in this area, taking full advantage of the business and technology capabilities of both industry leaders – more about this at this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW event!”
What sort of machine learning collaboration? Google’s blog post on the acquisition is a little more instructive in that area, with Nan Boden, head of global technology partners at Google Cloud writing: “Google and SAP intend to collaborate on building machine learning features into intelligent applications like conversational apps that guide users through complex workflows and transactions.”
This is big news for both companies: Google gain an enterprise client that already has deals with cloud rivals Microsoft and Amazon. For SAP, access to Google’s business productivity apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.) is a very welcome addition, offering their customers greater choice. “With the Gmail and Google Calendar integration, we are giving customers the ability to emulate day-to-day business processes to increase user productivity and enhance flexibility and usability,” wrote Leukert,
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