The SAP customer base hasn’t always been a happy hunting ground for independent software vendors (ISVs). To begin with, it could be challenging to gain access to enterprises that needed to extend the capabilities of their SAP and third-party solutions. Even if you got your foot in the door, many times you needed specialized programming skills to work within SAP solutions. And historically, it took lots of time and effort to develop apps that integrated seamlessly with SAP applications.
All of that has changed with the SAP HANA Cloud Platform (HCP). This flexible, powerful Platform as a Service (PaaS) gives you easy access to the SAP market, while making it simple to create—and scale—the cloud apps customers are looking for.
Here are three reasons why you should use this platform.
1. Access to SAP customers
HCP is all about simplifying the integration and extending the value of SAP applications and data. Compatibility and integration are no longer barriers. Any solution you develop on this platform will automatically snap into SAP customer environments.
When your apps are ready for market, it’s easy to reach the SAP network (which includes more than 320,000 businesses). Simply upload your applications to the
SAP HANA App Center and customers can find your solutions with a click. Customers can try out your apps right there to decide if the solution fits their needs. You can imagine how that helps accelerate purchases.
SAP also promotes its cloud platform globally, driving potential customers to your solutions. And there are further opportunities to build awareness of HCP apps at a variety of SAP events, including SAPPHIRE, TechEd, SuccessConnect, Ariba Live, and others.
Of course, you want your endeavors to be properly rewarded, so you’ll be pleased to know that SAP offers a number of ways to monetize your apps.
2. Accelerated development
Every ISV knows that time to market is critical to success, especially in emerging areas where being first can greatly impact market share. That’s why HCP supports popular languages and development environments like Java, node.js, and Ruby, letting you leverage the skills you already have. There’s no more need to send your under-30 developers to
ABAP class.
The platform also supports microservices architectures, which make it faster to bring new functionality online. Using the HCP API Business Hub, you can quickly discover APIs for SAP applications, and integrate them with apps and services from anywhere—Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example.
The end result is that you can slash development time, accomplishing in days what would take months without SAP HCP. So your apps get to market faster, and your customers can start seizing opportunities that were never before possible. A win-win if ever there was one.
3. A toolbox of advanced SAP technologies
A final reason to create cloud apps on HCP is access to powerful SAP technologies. These capabilities can help you develop apps to deliver greater value to the customers you’re targeting. These include:
- Real-time analytics. Underlying HCP is the SAP HANA computing platform, which provides real-time performance along with predictive, geospatial, graph, and text analytics engines.
- Comprehensive IoT services. Remote device management, streaming analytics, and predictive maintenance are just a few of the IoT services available on HCP.
- Mobile support. Technology partnerships with Apple and IBM make it easy to create native iOS apps that integrate SAP data.
- Security and compliance. Given the sensitive and proprietary data that SAP apps handle, customers have to know that any new solution they add will not compromise their business. The built-in security and compliance features of HCP save you development time, and give customers confidence in your apps.
In short, SAP HANA Cloud Platform gives you all the tools you need to quickly develop powerful apps that complement SAP solution features, while also helping you monetize your products by tapping into the vast SAP business ecosystem.
Ready to get started? That’s easy, too. Everything you need is at
hcp.sap.com/partners.html
