Fahrbach also said that in comparison with the sales position held by his predecessor, Rodolpho Cardenuto, as SAP’s top channel official, he represents the entire global partner organization, and brings it to a higher level of importance within the company.
Fahrbach’s new position is a hybrid of the work he had already been doing and the large scope of the role formerly filled by Rodolpho Cardenuto, who recently left SAP.
SAP believes it can provide a differentiated value in the cloud compared to other vendors, and with IDC saying that partners who create and sell their own software in the Cloud will projected by 24 per cent over the next five years, SAP is focusing on that as an area of opportunity.
SAP has been encouraging Business One partners to start Business ByDesign practices as well, touting the success of partners who have recently made the move, like Calgary-based VistaVu.
Free access to the SAP Cloud Platform for testing, demonstration and development licensing services is now available to all SAP partners except for open ecosystem members. The goal is to increase their capabilities to design services on top of the SAP core.
The surprise announcement comes before an announcement where Cardenuto had been scheduled to speak. No successor has been immediately named, and SAP says no changes to channel policies should be anticipated, as Cardenuto’s channel leadership team remains in place.
Lenovo’s ThinkSystem servers have long been certified on SAP HANA, but this is the first certification of their ThinkAgile HCI line with Nutanix, which they see as both a strong validation that HCI is ready for the enterprise, and a great market opportunity.
Certification on SAP HANA is exceedingly important for HCI vendors, because it validates that HCI will run in a demanding Tier One environment, and opens up a market where enormous pent-up demand exists, that has just been waiting for this validation.
Square has built a big business around providing support to microsellers who were too small to interest credit card companies, or who found their services too expensive. While this market is still their core, they have moved upmarket as well, with larger sellers, assisted by strategic partnerships with companies like SAP. The new channel program is designed to support partners in this upmarket transition.
Nutanix follows up their certification on SAP HANA non-production environments in June with the expected – but still very important – announcement that they have now been certified for SAP HANA production environments as well.
SAP launched this new component in their cloud strategy this March, and have already had 450 partner solutions qualified – with between 700 and 800 more in the pipeline.
While this in itself is huge news for Nutanix and their channel partners, the goal is to have HANA certified for production environments in the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS with their 5.9 release.
Just in time for SAP SAPPHIRE, several significant new SAP HANA software applications were announced, but that’s only a part of a fairly comprehensive Hitachi Vantara announcement.
Attunity is also highlighting their new Attunity Gold Client for Data Protection for SAP environments, which is designed to satisfy the new EU GDPR ‘right to be forgotten’ compliance requirements.
Veeam CEO Peter McKay credited Veeam’s expansion of their strategic relationships as critical to their success in 2017, and indicated they plan significant further expansion here going forward.
The new SAP initiative provides partners with packaged cloud solutions, with the partner adding their own IP. It also contains go-to-market and marketing initiatives to help the partners sell the packages.
The Cloud Accelerator initiative, a new component in the SAP Cloud Choice Profit program, provides cloud marketing resources and support for cloud partners who meet specific criteria.
SAP has reorganized its internal organization this year to allow more aggressive recruitment of new cloud-focused SMB partners, including non-traditional partners. It’s a strategy they plan to accelerate in 2018.
Square, which built its business on simple point-of-sale solutions for microbusinesses, is moving upmarket, and partnerships like their new integration with SAP are putting them in touch with an integrator channel for the first time.
SAP is gotten good results in its sub-$300 million segment by going digital to transform the customer experience, and by making these tools available to partners.
