SAP Buys Startup Plat.One, Plans to Invest $2.2 Billion in the Internet of Things by 2020

| Updated
by Polina Chernykh · 3 min read
SAP Buys Startup Plat.One, Plans to Invest $2.2 Billion in the Internet of Things by 2020
SAP SE is a German multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Photo: Oliver Elias via Ars Electronica/Flickr

Germany-based software producer SAP is planning to make a significant investment in the Internet of Things by 2020, thus expanding its footprint within the market.

SAP has announced it is going to invest $2.2 billion in the internet-connected devices within the next five years. With the new investment, the company plans to broaden its SAP Internet of Things products portfolio, boost sales, and expand the ecosystem of partners.

“It is a big and growing market and we think we can be a significant part of it,” Tanja Rueckert, SAP’s executive vice president in charge of digital assets and Internet of Things, told Fortune.

“While business and public sector entities have unprecedented access to more information and real-time feeds, they still have difficulty tying it all together,” SAP said.

According to research company Gartner, by 2020, there will be 21 billion IoT devices globally. If compared, there were less than 5 billion devices last year.

As part of its IoT plan, the company will set up new SAP Internet of Things development labs across the world to better cooperate with its partners. The labs will help customers to test various IoT and digital solutions. The company already projects to open such labs in Johannesburg, Munich, Berlin, Palo Alto, São Leopoldo in Brazil, and Shanghai.

SAP also projects to acquire new startups, the first of which are Italian Plat.One and Norway-based Fedem Technology. Both companies, SAP noted, will be integrated into the company’s SAP HANA platform. Plat.One will add such capabilities, as device lifecycle management, edge computing, and development tools for IoT applications. Meantime, Fedem Technology will be used to enhance HANA’s analytics capabilities

“We cooperate with Siemens, Dell, Intel, T-Systems and Vodafone among others. We talk to other partners as well. That is the direction we will continue to look at. To work with others in partnerships,” Rueckert added.

Last week, the company signed a deal with car parts manufacturer, Robert Bosch, to provide connectivity among cars, screwdrivers and other devices. SAP said it will combine its back-end software and Robert Bosch’s platform to connect manufacturing machinery and Bosch customers’ tools. Besides, SAP said it is going to launch SAP Internet of Things, a new product line that combines data from IoT devices with machine learning and SAP’s real-time database S/4 HANA.

“With billions of connected devices, we now have the potential to reshape society, the economy and the environment,” Bill McDermott, SAP’ CEO, told CRN. “SAP HANA is the data platform we knew would unlock the Internet of Things. Today SAP is making another bold investment to help our customers seize the benefits of live business. Only SAP empowers businesses to innovate from the core to the edges to the networks.”

Editor's Choice, Internet of Things News, News
Related Articles