The contrast is striking. In a week, when Facebook’s $ 1 billion acquisition of Instagram showed mobile apps are the new path to get closer to the consumer/enduser, SAP announced it wanted to go the other direction - deeper into the bowels of the enterprise. It wants to be the 2nd largest database vendor by 2015.
In fairness, SAP also has a broad mobile strategy. It believes it is all set to also harness “millions” of mobile developers.
Three questions do come to mind:
- What kind of licensing will its attorneys free up for such individual developers?
- If I was a developer, why would I not expect SAP to keep playing favorites with Deloitte, Accenture, IBM and its traditional go-to partners?
- Culturally, can SAP keep focusing on Oracle, and also Facebook, Apple, and Google as its competition?
