Microsoft extends partnership with SAP

BANGALORE, INDIA: After 20 years of partnership of Microsoft and SAP, Microsoft has announced an extension of partnership that's focused on giving enterprise customers increased flexibility and better insights in the cloud and on mobile devices, in MIcrosoft's blog.

By the end of June, SAP will certify a number of their business applications to run on Microsoft Azure, including SAP Business Suite software, SAP business all-in-one solution, SAP mobile platform, SAP adaptive server enterprise (SAP ASE) and the developer edition of the SAP HANA platform.

This means customers will be able to get benefits of SAP software on the enterprise-grade public cloud. They will be able to move existing applications and services, or deploy new ones in minutes using the SAP cloud appliance library tool, to Azure and benefit from nearly unlimited computing capacity.

Customers are already using Power BI and the interoperability built into the SAP Gateway for Microsoft to access SAP applications and data through Microsoft Office. With Power BI connectivity, customers get tools to visualize and find insights in the data that drives their business.

The new Gateway for Microsoft, which is expected to be available by the end of 2014, will allow customers to access SAP data and processes through Office 365 and Microsoft Azure.

Developers can also use this new Gateway to build applications quickly and easily by leveraging key Office 365 and Azure services like document collaboration, workflow, enterprise social and identity, according to the Microsoft blog post.

Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president, cloud and enterprise marketing, microsoft, mentioned in the blog: "We know people want to be productive on the devices they love, wherever they are, which is why many of our customers' favorite SAP applications already run on Windows and Windows Phone. Today, that gets even better. New, industry-specific apps for retail and banking, as well as updated versions of the SAP Mobile Platform with SDK's for Windows and Windows Phone 8.1 are on their way. Previews will be out before the end of 2014 with general availability anticipated in 2015. Of course, customers will be able to manage and better secure all of these applications with Windows Intune and SAP Mobile Secure, giving enterprises the flexibility and control they need."