HANA in 90% of installed base in 3 years, predicts SAP exec

SAP (NYSE: SAP) expects that its high performance in-memory appliance HANA will expand and be found in 90% of its installed base of clients within the next three years, Leonel Graff, sales VP for SAP Chile, told BNamericas. The appliance has been deployed with three clients so far in Chile while there are other deployments currently taking place, he said during the SAP Forum Chile 2013, held in capital Santiago, during which the firm announced the availability of SAP Business Suite on HANA. The newest addition is the latest of a string of applications available on the in-memory appliance, following the launch of Business One and Business Objects available on HANA in 2011, and of Business Warehouse in 2012. The global take up of HANA has been the fastest of any product that SAP has launched in its 40-year history, Marcelo Giampietro, general director of Spanish-speaking South America, said during a keynote address. Emphasizing that "to innovate is to grow, and to grow is to innovate," he said the company's applications look to help firms weather the "perfect storm" that they face today. He attributed the storm to four issues: the explosion of the middle class in Chile and in Latin America in general, which means more educated consumers making decisions in real time and forcing companies to get more competitive; mobility, where worldwide there are now more mobile devices than people and where the consumer often consults the internet before making purchases; the cloud, which is changing the paradigm of doing business as social networks can make or break a company; and big data, which is becoming a headache for companies as they collect more and more business data but are unable to transform this into information for doing business. "In light of these challenges, companies need to innovate," Giampietro said. At the conference SAP also showcased its Mobile Town initiative, introducing mobile applications designed specifically for different verticals such as retail, utilities, financial services and mining.