Announcing the Free download of SAP HANA + SUSE Linux Virtual Machine

Doing a startup is a risky business. According to a study by Mashable, 75% of all startups and 90% of all products fail. At SAP Startup Focus, we are in the business of helping startups increase those odds considerably. We do this by providing them an amazing software platform SAP HANA they can build their solutions on and by helping them with the go-to-market side of things. Currently we have over 1,700 startups that are building solutions on our HANA platform, from more than 55 countries, with 130 validated solutions available for sale to customers.

As compared to a few years ago, it has indeed become a lot easier and a lot cheaper to build an application you can take to market, or shop around to investors. With widespread adoption of the Cloud and increasing usage of Mobile as a consumption mechanism, even scrappy startups can now develop sophisticated products without getting a 2^nd mortgage on the house.

And that is where our very valued partners at SUSE come in. They understand unequivocally that for startups to succeed in a brutally competitive global environment, they not only need access to cutting edge technology like SAP HANA but also need it in a manner that is uniquely suited to their geographic and financial situation. For e.g. in several emerging markets access to commercial-grade bandwidth remains an ongoing issue which means that developing on a platform that is only available in the Cloud remains a logistical challenge.

Hence, we are very proud to announce that starting right now qualified startups in the SAP Startup Focus program will be eligible to receive for a 6-month period a comprehensive developer version of SAP HANA on SUSE Enterprise Linux Server as a single, downloadable Virtual Machine (VM). A single VM reduces the barriers to adoption for the SAP HANA platform, and will allow for startups to quickly evaluate and rapidly prototype solutions while running a developer version of SAP HANA on their local machine.  This will significantly reduce cost, and increase the agility of a startup in the initial product development phase of their lifecycle.

Additionally, startups will also receive free training via SUSE’s Certified Linux Administrator (CLA) Academy, a $2,375 USD value. Pre-sales electronic support and membership in SUSE’s partner program operated by PartnerNet®, which provides access to additional SUSE software, is also included.

To download the VM, please visit the SAP HANA Marketplace, the destination for startups to discover, try and buy the SAP HANA platform as well as applications based on SAP HANA, located at http://marketplace.saphana.com/p/3377