SAP's Snabe Sees a Third of 2015 Revenue From Subscription Fees

SAP AG co-Chief Executive OfficerJim Hagemann Snabe predicts subscription-based services, fueledby mobile and cloud-computing products, will account for a thirdof the business-software maker's revenue in 2015.

SAP is augmenting its traditional software license-revenuemodel with offers in which companies lease applications forshorter time periods. The company has acquired mobile-solutionsprovider Sybase Inc. and cloud computing-focused SuccessFactorsInc., and rolled out on-demand enterprise software as it seeksto boost 2015 revenue to more than 20 billion euros from 14.2 billion euros last year.

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, will begin breaking outrevenue from subscription services this year, spokesman Christoph Liedtke said. The company began regular offerings ofsoftware with subscription fees with the wider deployment of Business ByDesign and the acquisition of Sybase in 2010.

SAP is integrating its Hana innovation, which enablesprocessing of large amounts of data on the go, with mobile andcloud products. For instance, a company employee can make ad-hocchanges to a sales presentation on his Apple Inc. iPad andpresent the results forthwith, where if not he may haveto ask colleagues to retrieve that information from a database.

SAP leads rivals by about 1 1/2 years in in-memorycomputing and is about a year ahead of competitors in solutionsto make smartphones and tablets safe to use as business tools,Snabe said. The acquisition of SuccessFactors, which wascompleted last week, means SAP has as well caught up in cloudservices, which involves delivering applications on demand viathe Web, he added.

The database in avery different paradigm

"In-memory innovation is so traditionally disruptive todatabase vendors because they have to rethink the database in avery different paradigm," Poonen said in an interview. "Theapproach typically with the old database vendors is they aregoing to throw a lot more hardware at the problem to try and getthe same kind of performance that we're getting. And we'll seehow that plays out."

SAP this week unveiled a partnership with SamsungElectronics Co. to bring more devices based on Google Inc.'s Android software into corporate use by reducing security risks in the software and enable corporate IT to manage the devices.

Business use of mobile

"From a business use of mobile, we are probably a yearahead, however it's a very fast-moving market and if you look at thesmartphones everyone gets it," Snabe said. "This will be afight for speed."

SAP is as well seeking deeper cooperation with Microsoft Corp.and Nokia Oyj on Windows Phone, he said, adding that theoperating system is "a very important platform."

"We've always said we'll support all leading mobileplatforms, and Windows Phone anyway belongs to thatcategory," Snabe said.