SAP aims to be the Apple of enterprise mobility
A home improvement retail chain can use an app running on an iPad to help design a customer's home, check inventory for the products, give a cost estimate to the customer, and take orders.
Yet another app called iPeople allows human resources executives to drill down into a visual of employees' business cards to access information based on a variety of parameters. SAP, the company behind these apps, has been largely identified with complex backend business software for enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, customer relationship management, and its new in-memory database HANA.
Its goal now in the mobile arena is to create a brand for itself in enterprise mobility like Apple did in consumer mobility, said Sanjay Poonen, president of technology solutions and head of the mobile division at SAP, in an interview on Wednesday. That goal requires investments in mobile security, the platform for applications, and in the mobile applications themselves, he said.
