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SAP Extends Ties With Alibaba for Cloud Offerings in China

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SAP SE (SAP - Free Report) and Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA - Free Report) recently expanded their partnership to enable a seamless transition to cloud infrastructure for enterprises and better management of scalable workloads and critical applications.

SAP’s privately managed cloud service known as SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and SAP Cloud Platform will run on Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure as a service (IaaS) in China. This move will enable customers to deploy SAP S/4HANA in a secure cloud environment.

SAP makes software to handle business processes and offers cloud-computing, machine-learning and data-analysis services. SAP is steadily emerging as a frontrunner in the enterprise software business and the recent deal is expected to expand the company’s customer base.

SAP-Alibaba Relationship

SAP entered into a long-standing relationship with Alibaba in 2016 to offer cloud-based solutions in China via Alibaba Cloud.

Notably, Alibaba was one of the first companies in China to pass SAP’s certification to run SAP Business Suite on Alibaba Cloud in December 2017.

In 2017, Alibaba Cloud was certified for SAP HANA on Alibaba Cloud’s enterprise-level memory-enhanced ECS.

The business enterprises can now utilize Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure and computing power to run a variety of SAP solutions. In fact, both the companies are working together to develop innovative solutions to cater to needs of the customers efficiently.

Consequently, the recent collaboration to run SAP S/4HANA Cloud on Alibaba Cloud holds promise.

SAP SE Price

 

SAP SE Price | SAP SE Quote

Bottom Line

SAP  HANA  Cloud  Platform and its partners have been gaining rapid popularity, assisting clients extend their functionalities, build  new  applications,  and  integrate  across  cloud  and  on-premise platforms, which in turn is fueling growth. It has been driving growth since its introduction. The company constantly upgrades its existing products and launches fresh ones to gain customers.

Cloud still remains an expanding market with high growth prospects. In a recent report, Gartner projected the public cloud market to reach $411.4 billion by 2020. According to International Trade Administration, the Chinese cloud market is likely to touch $20 billion mark by 2020, witnessing a CAGR of 40%.

We believe that SAP, with its ongoing initiatives, is well poised to seize the opportunity. In fact, the cloud computing is likely to be one of its major growth drivers in the long run.

Zacks Rank & Keys Picks

Currently, SAP carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Few better-ranked stocks in the broader technology sector are Salesforce.com Inc (CRM - Free Report) and Aspen Technology, Inc. (AZPN - Free Report) , both sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The projected earnings growth rate (3-5 years) for Salesforce and Aspen are 25% and 16.5%, respectively.

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