SAP Acquires Ariba To Improve Cloud Credentials

SAP is gaining entry into the fast-growing collaboration research market with the acquisition of Ariba for $4.3 billion.

Ariba, which has 2,600 employees and is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., recorded $444 million in revenue in 2011, a 38.5 percent jump over 2010.

Ariba sells cloud-based collaborative commerce applications used primarily in business-to-business environments. The acquisition comes one week afterwards SAP rolled out a series of cloud-based applications at a conference in Orlando, Florida, tied to its acquisition of SuccessFactors, a maker of cloud-based human resources software, in February.

"SAP's entry into the inter-enterprise business network space significantly expands its growth opportunities and accelerates its momentum in the cloud," SAP stated in a news release.

Collaboration tools as well include Voice over IP telephony, e-mail, instant messaging and videoconferencing features, collectively called unified communications research. Microsoft Lync, for instance, is a widely used UC platform. In the same fashion, Microsoft SharePoint is a Web application platform for collaboration, enabling document sharing and editing via the cloud.

The size of the cloud-based enterprise network

SAP said that industry experts estimate the size of the cloud-based enterprise network and procurement segment, in which Ariba operates, at $5 billion in revenue and that the Ariba network is the largest and most global trading network in the space, connecting and automating more than $319 billion in commerce transactions.

"In our personal lives, networks are playing an increasingly important role in how we connect, share, and shop-bringing more insight and efficiency into everything we do," said Bob Calderoni, CEO of Ariba, in a statement. "Businesses are looking for the same connectedness, insight, and efficiencies in the processes and collaboration with clients, suppliers and partners beyond the walls of their companies."