As SAP continues to redefine itself as a mobile powerhouse – having acquired Sybase and Syclo, as well as having created fairly strong bonds with mobile app vendors Appcelerator, Sencha and Adobe – it may perhaps be starting to leave some of the independent mobile enterprise apps vendors in its wake. These companies can be mobile app development vendors such as Kony Solutions, or they can be independent, mobile-focused SAP developers, such as Sky Technologies.
As SAP strengthens its own mobile hand, it begins to apply possibly significant business pressure to small independents such as Kony and Sky.
Sky, headquartered in Melborne, Australia, has over 14 years of experience and has deployed hundreds of mobility projects to SAP customers in more than 35 countries. The company offers proven mobile solutions in key business areas such as CRM/sales, field service, asset management, human capital management, supply chain management, and business intelligence.
SAP itself covers these areas of business process though various combinations of its in-house, Sybase and Syclo capabilities.
Kony is a mobile and multichannel application platform provider. Kony has developed the KonyOne Platform and Kony Mobile App Manager, as well as a suite of customizable pre-built mobile apps that will run across all smartphones, feature phones, tablets, kiosks and desktops, seven operating systems and multiple deployment modes, including HTML5, the mobile Web, native and hybrid modes.
Kony has been fairly successful in gaining customer mindshare in a market where it competes against a number of other independent mobile app platform competitors.
On August 21 2012, the companies opted to combine their collective resources, with Kony announcing that it will acquire Sky. Combining Sky’s SAP-based enterprise expertise – which comes with a large installed base of SAP mobile customers – with Kony’s mobile apps platform, packaged mobile applications, and Kony's mobile application management (MAM) capabilities makes sense. It provides the combined company with some differentiable capabilities.
The combined platform and app development capabilities will enable businesses to quickly build out both business to consumer (B2C) and business to employee (B2E) applications.
With Sky in hand, Kony can now offer customers a broader range of B2E solutions than it was previously able to. In particular, Kony can now deliver certified integration with SAP environments. SAP customers in particular benefit from Sky’s ability to deploy from inside SAP and domain expertise in B2E environments. It is a big step up for Kony, and if the two managements are able to make the acquisition work – by which we mean the solid and quick integration of both companies and pulling together meaningful service offerings – Kony should do well.
The Sky team brings with it more than 100 Global 2000 customers that have used Sky to mobilize SAP in B2E applications. These customers include Konica Minolta, Schweppes, Toyota, WA Water Corporation, Princes Foods, Henkel, Tyco, Carl Zeiss, and some leading global consumer products and professional services companies. Sky will now be able to take advantage of Kony’s existing strategic partnerships with Accenture, Cognizant and IBM.
The combined company plans to operate "mobility centers of excellence" in the Americas, Europe, South America, Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
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Edited by
Braden Becker 
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