SAP and Microsoft expand their cloud collaboration
On Monday October 21, SAP and Microsoft announced a new collaboration that is aligned with their mutual goal to facilitate the process of driving enterprise customers’ operations to the cloud.
Through the partnership dubbed Project Embrace, the companies intend to accelerate and simplify customer adoption of SAP S/ 4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Microsoft will sell components of SAP Cloud Platform alongside Azure.
This unique offering will enable the migration of SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA customers from on-premises to the public cloud through unified reference architectures, road maps and market-approved journeys, and a combined support model for Azure and SAP Cloud Platform that will improve communication.
Additionally, the partners offer New SAP MaxAttention services specifically designed to further assist customers on their journey and troubleshoot any problems that might arise. These services range from discovery workshops to accelerated support, from design through go live.
In the long run, the ultimate goal of Project Embrace, reflecting SAP and Microsoft’s common customer-first mindset, is to help their enterprise clients achieve cost reductions, improved system performance, and access to innovation as they move to S/4HANA in the cloud, explained Jennifer Morgan, one of the two SAP CEOs.
The new agreement strengthens SAP’s longstanding partner relationship with Microsoft and the Azure cloud division. Previously, the SAP’s HANA Enterprise Cloud platform was integrated with Microsoft Azure services enabling customers to run SAP S/4HANA in a secure, controlled cloud.
At the same time, the German company emphasizes that they will continue to maintain partnerships with other cloud providers like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
According to Reuters, SAP’s new agreement with Microsoft will increase the volume of cloud orders as well as positively affect the company’s overall business image. As per SAP’s own financial forecasts, by 2023 the company expects to triple their cloud revenue and to reach 35 billion euros in sales compared to 24.7 billion euros in 2018.
