Back on April 10, 2012 SAP AG announced a number of partnerships with various mobile app development platform vendors, including Adobe, Sencha and Appcelerator. The goal of the partnerships was, for the most part, to add a veneer of mobile app development smarts to SAP’s mobile portfolio that would allow enterprises to find their way to the best possible SAP-blessed resources for developing high quality mobile applications. A key component of this collection of partnerships was to underscore what Sanjay Poonen, president of SAP’s Mobile Division, is fond of referring to SAP’s commitment to driving real innovation – which included melding mobile capabilities with SAP’s core software capabilities, as well as SAP’s growing suite of cloud services capabilities.
SAP has also made substantial acquisitions on the mobile front – specifically, its acquisitions of Sybase in May of 2010 for $5.8 billion, and Syclo (a privately held mobile apps vendor). Through these acquisitions SAP’s senior management has successfully made mobility a core part of its business DNA, and the company continues to advance this mobile-centric view through partnerships such as those highlighted above. Those of us who have long covered SAP’s mobile initiatives have seen a real change in the company – a change that has moved SAP from paying lip service to mobility to embracing it in a way that will help SAP’s customers – and ISVs that also cater to these customers - to get their own handles on mobile possibilities.
Sybase, of course, is/was a lot more than a mobile player, but its unwired platform is the centerpiece around which SAP saw nearly $6 billion of value. Sybase had a lot of mobile pieces (including is Afaria mobile device management platform), but the truth of the matter was that all of these mobile pieces did not make it easy for an enterprise to build mobile apps. Syclo has its own Agentry mobile app development platform, but it doesn’t sell the platform – it sells its own primarily asset management-based mobile apps that use Agentry. Those apps are now in the process of becoming SAP apps and are being integrated into what is now SAP’s Unwired Platform.
Still, in spite of these investments in Sybase and Syclo, SAP lacks an easy means for ISVs and enterprises to build their own mobile applications, albeit, as far as SAP is concerned, mobile apps that have SAP enterprise software running behind the scenes. What to do to drive that previously noted mobile-based innovation? That is where the mobile development partnerships come into play. Appcelerator and Sencha, among several other players, provide enterprise developers with the necessary tools to build native and HTML5-based applications relatively quickly.
SAP has now taken this scenario to a new level. Today’s announcement introduces a set of comprehensive and affordable offerings that support mobile app development. The company has announced a free mobile developer license, a new Mobile Apps Partner program and additional support for integrating the software development platforms from Adobe, Appcelerator and Sencha with the SAP mobile platform.
The announcement is meant to strongly highlight SAP’s commitment to engaging an open developer and partner ecosystem. SAP is attempting to create an end-to-end support system to help ensure that mobile developers have easy access to all available SAP resources and partners, in turn creating the shortest and easiest path possible to build B2B and B2C mobile apps. Enterprise developers and ISVs will have access to support through SAP’s Developer Center on SAP’s Community Network.
SAP is offering a flexible, tiered engagement model that includes the following:
- Free 30-day trial: For developers looking to evaluate mobile offerings from SAP, this trial includes complete hosted landscape, including SAP mobile platform and the SAP ERP application with no local installation needed.
- Free developer license on Amazon Web Services (AWS): For productive apps development, this option offers access to a hosted developer environment through AWS and a software developer kit (SDK) local download. There are no developer fees so users only pay for cloud hosting.
- SAP Mobile Apps Partner program: For productive, packaged apps development this offer includes comprehensive technical and commercialization support, including the option to list packaged apps on SAP’s apps marketplace, which will allow developers to monetize apps directly via SAP’s own store.
The next step is for the enterprise developers and ISVs to step up to the challenge of delivering on the mobile innovation SAP has put on the table. The tools are in place – now all that remains is to see how successful SAP is in selling the idea to the folks that matter – the developers.
Want to learn more about today’s powerful mobile Internet ecosystem? Then be sure to attend the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5 2012, in Austin, TX. Co-sponsored by TMC Partner Crossfire Media the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo provides unmatched networking opportunities and a robust conference program representing the mobile ecosystem. The conference not only brings together the best and brightest in the wireless industry, it actually spans the communications and technology industry. For more information on registering for the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo click here.
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Tony Rizzo has spent over 25 years in high tech publishing and joins MobilityTechzone after a stint as Editor in Chief of Mobile Enterprise Magazine, which followed a two year stretch on the mobile vendor side of the world. Tony also spent five years as the Director of Mobile Research for 451 Research. Before his jump into mobility Tony spent a year as a publishing consultant for CMP Media, and served as the Editor in Chief of Internet World, NetGuide and Network Computing. He was the founding Technical Editor of Microsoft Systems Journal.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey
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