ARMONK, N.Y. and WALLDORF, Germany, Oct. 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that SAP has selected IBM as a premier strategic provider of Cloud infrastructure services for its business critical applications – accelerating customers' ability to run core business in the cloud. The SAP® HANA Enterprise Cloud offering is now available through IBM's highly scalable, open and secure cloud. SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud will expand to major markets with the addition of the IBM cloud data centers. This is expected to enable customers to deploy their SAP software around the globe in a faster and more secure environment that is backed by IBM's proven cloud capabilities.

"We look forward to extending one of the longest and most successful partnerships in the IT industry," said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. "The demand for SAP HANA and the SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA in the cloud is tremendous and this global agreement with IBM heralds a new era of cloud collaboration. We anticipate customers will benefit from this collaboration and expansion of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud."

"This announcement is a significant milestone in the deployment of enterprise cloud," said IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty. "It builds on our two companies' long history of bringing innovation to business, and extends IBM's position as the premier global cloud platform. Our secure, open, hybrid enterprise cloud platform will enable SAP clients to support new ways to work in an era shaped by Big Data, mobile and social."

Together, IBM and SAP have the expertise, solutions and cloud infrastructure to deliver SAP business solutions on the IBM Cloud. SAP brings the power of realtime through in-memory computing capabilities of SAP HANA combined with the ability to run mission-critical business applications, like SAP Business Suite, in a cloud environment. IBM brings enterprise depth and the open architecture of IBM Cloud Managed Services and SoftLayer — enabling customers to securely manage SAP workloads from trial to production on a consistent infrastructure, with transparency and control over where data resides. In addition, customers will benefit from the technology and services from both companies that offer industry-specific best practices, enabling customers to transform their organizations. SAP and IBM customers of all sizes will benefit from this joint collaboration of two of the most trusted companies in the industry.

Key Benefits to Enterprises of All Sizes Are Expected to Include:

• Customers can take advantage of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud with the global footprint of IBM Cloud. This enables customers to put data to work with SAP HANA and business applications in the IBM Cloud built for speed, transparency and control.
• SAP HANA will run on IBM Cloud to provide an open-standards-based approach that will help create the foundation to more easily integrate existing technology investments with new workloads.
• IBM and SAP are committed to security for enterprise customers in the cloud. The IBM Cloud provides visibility and control to enable enterprises to apply and extend their security best practices into a cloud environment.
• Companies will now have additional reach and scale to more easily start locally and scale globally with cloud capabilities and also comply with data residency and other regulatory mandates.

For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions to enable clients for the hybrid cloud era with integration, control over data and expertise. Since the $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer, IBM has continued to make significant investments in building out a comprehensive cloud portfolio including $1.2 billion to expand its global footprint to 40 data centers and $1 billion investment to establish Bluemix, a cloud platform-as-a-service on Cloud Foundry, to help millions of developers. IBM Cloud has helped more than 30,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a growing global network of data centers. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 17 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more the 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 261,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com. 

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

© 2014 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices.

Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information regarding IBM, press only:
Scott Cook, 312.669.4743, scotty@us.ibm.com

For more information regarding SAP, press only:
Samantha Finnegan, (415) 377-0475, samantha.finnegan@sap.com, PDT
Jason Loesche, 484 437 0015, j.loesche@sap.com, EDT
SAP News Center press room; press@sap.com

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141014/152044-INFO
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141014/152045-INFO
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141014/152042-INFO
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141014/152043-INFO
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO

SOURCE IBM