SAP Commits £1.7bn To Five-Year IoT Drive

SAP will invest €2 billion (£1.7bn) over the next five years to grow its Internet of Things (IoT) division as more organisations make use of sensors, smart devices and big data.

The enterprise software giant plans to use the investment to build out its IoT offerings, develop an ecosystem of partners, and make a significant sales and marketing push so it can carve out a slice of the IoT market which is set to be worth a hefty €250 billion by 2020.

“With billions of connected devices, we now have the potential to reshape society, the economy and the environment,” said Bill McDermott, CEO at SAP. “Today SAP is making another bold investment to help our customers seize the benefits of live business.”

SAP IoT ambitions

SAP already has its HANA Cloud Platform for the IoT, a cloud-based version of the in-memory database software. This allows for machine and sensor data to be collected, processed and analysed, as well as the control of IoT devices and the deployment of IoT applications through the cloud.

But the investment will see its capabilities expanded and bolstered with new partnerships and acquisitions.

SAP recently joined forces with Bosch to combine the companies’ respective IoT products, and the Germany firm has also snapped up companies such as Norwegian engineering analysis and building software firm Fedem Technology and enterprise IoT specialist Plat.One.

SAP will need such a hefty investment as the IoT arena is rapidly becoming crowded with technology giant like Oracle with its IoT Cloud Service and Microsoft with Azure IoT Hub all looking to make waved in the market.

While SAP chases the IoT market it is also looking at improving its big data services, as the vast amounts of data found across IoT networks is where a large proportion of value lies for businesses. SAP’s completion of its acquisition of Altiscale will see it be able to offer a more comprehensive set of big data services.

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