SAP and IBM have made yet another expansion to their long-running and broad partnership, announcing plans to work together on next-generation ERP, cognitive computing and application user experience.
As part of the deal, IBM and SAP will co-locate staffers in Walldorf, Germany and Palo Alto—two of SAP's main development sites around the world. Here are the specific components of their plans:
- Building on an agreement announced in October 2014 that saw IBM provide cloud infrastructure for SAP's HANA Enterprise Cloud, the companies "will collaborate on industry-specific cloud solutions and expand current SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud services to include ongoing application maintenance and support services."
- For on-premises customers, SAP and IBM will work together on projects that use IBM Power Systems to run HANA. IBM has also created a Power Systems Center of Excellence for HANA.
- In one of the more intriguing aspects of the announcement, IBM will develop cognitive computing capabilities for SAP's next-generation S/4HANA ERP suite, as well as line-of-business applications that use IBM's cognitive APIs "to drive more informed decisions by a broad range of business users and across all C-suite professions."
- IBM Interactive Experience digital agency will work with SAP's global design group and others on "pre-designed experiences that can be further customized for clients’ customers and employees," according to the announcement. SAP has made a big effort to improve its UX with projects like Fiori, which is the native user interface for S/4HANA.
Analysis: A Promising Partnership, But Customers Must Wait and See
"It's interesting as it brings IBM and SAP together on multiple levels with products from both sides to help customers," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "The combined offering is superior to what they could or would put up themselves individually. And that's what matters the most in these partnerships. At the end the customer needs to win."
Of course, IBM and SAP are hoping to drive growth with the new partnerships as well as customer success. It's no accident that the deal involves products both companies are especially keen to advance.
"The high-level spin on these combinations is to help companies become digital enterprises," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Doug Henschen. And that's where a dose of healthy skepticism is warranted.
"It’s an extension of IBM and SAP’s existing strong integration and cloud-deployment ties, but it’s still early days for all of the component parts cited here, let alone new blendings of these capabilities that bring IBM cognitive, mobile and/or data services capabilities into the context of SAP applications," Henschen adds. "In short, it’s the latest, sexiest stuff from each company packaged together, but it’s more of a promise of things to come than proof in the pudding at this point."
That being said, the plans for cognitive and SAP S/4HANA should prove mutually beneficial to both companies, Henschen says. "SAP isn’t a player in cognitive yet, and IBM needs to scale its cognitive business as quickly as it can and notch more solid proof points. Depending on how compelling the packaging is, SAP big user base could do a lot to spread the use of IBM Cognitive capabilities.
"Think of SAP apps as a platform for embedding advanced cognitive capabilities," he adds. "In this approach it’s not cognitive experimentation from scratch, which may be intimidating; it’s cognitive (and advanced mobile) brought into play in the context of existing applications."
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