(Note: After an award-winning career in the media business covering the tech industry, Bob Evans was VP of Strategic Communications at SAP in 2011, and Chief Communications Officer at Oracle from 2012 to 2016. He now runs his own firm, Evans Strategic Communications LLC.)
CLOUD WARS -- While the competitive dynamics of an explosive industry like the enterprise cloud can be captivating, it's good to remember that the real driver behind all such competitive outcomes is, in the end, the customer.
So when Microsoft and SAP announced yesterday their deep and extensive partnership in the cloud, it was striking to see the passionate commentary from corporate customers about the significance of this unprecedented alliance.
Because when it comes to offering glowing public endorsements of enterprise-technology developments, big customer-side companies are generally somewhere between reluctant and violently opposed to any involvement.
Not so in this case.
Whatever impact this highly strategic cloud partnership will—or will not—have on top-flight cloud competitors such as Amazon, Salesforce.com, IBM and Oracle, the real story is that big corporations looking to move aggressively and intelligently into the cloud realize they will be able to reap major rewards from the deeply coordinated cloud offerings of SAP—the world's leading provider of enterprise applications and Microsoft, which some feel is the world's premier cloud-computing vendor.
I'll get to some of those customer raves in a moment, but to offer the right context for that, let's first take a look at what this unique cloud partnership between SAP and Microsoft involves:
- It directly involves the high-profile CEOs of each company: Microsoft's Satya Nadella and SAP's Bill McDermott, and it extends—signficantly and dramatically—the long-time alliance that's existed between the two software powerhouses.
- It offers customers "integrated offerings" to "provide a clear roadmap" as those business customers look to "drive more business innovation in the cloud." Integration, a clear road into the increasingly cloud-dependent future, and more business innovation in our digital age are all top-of-mind priorities for customers.
- It's not just some deep-tech code alignment but an end-to-end partnership: Microsoft and SAP say they will "co-engineer" new products and services, "go to market together with premier solutions, and provide joint support services."
- SAP's managed cloud service, called HANA Enterprise Cloud, can now run on Microsoft Azure, enabling customers to run SAP's S/4HANA enterprise apps on a platform for which Microsoft has reported revenue growth of at least 90 % in each of its last four quarters. The joint announcement from the two companies said this will give customers "the best of both worlds: application management and product expertise from SAP and a global, trusted and intelligent cloud from Microsoft Azure, including the range of Microsoft cloud services."
- SAP's McDermott put customers at the center of his comments about the importance of this partnership: "The world's significant businesses trust Microsoft and SAP. Together, we will help companies win the customer-driven growth revolution."
- Microsoft's Nadella also focused on how the partnership will deliver essential new capabilities to businesses, which over the past year has become his leading message: "Together we are empowering customers with the ability to harness the power of the cloud, data and analytics for true innovation."
- Each company has agreed to deploy fairly extensive instances of the other's cloud technologies, and to capture their experiences and share with customers in pursuit of best practices.
Against that backdrop, here's what some world-class customers had to say about the benefits they'll gain from the deep cloud collaboration between SAP and Microsoft. We'll start with the CIO and senior VP of The Coca-Cola Company, Barry Simpson, who was the most bullish and effusive of the customers whose comments were included in the joint announcement.
Calling the Microsoft-SAP cloud partnership "an extremely important development for the Coca-Cola System," Simpson said the two vendors' "aligned engineering, sales and delivery" will let Coca-Cola "accelerate our digital agenda. This is a very positive and exciting development for us."
If anybody's seen a more-passionate customer endorsement for an enterprise-tech deal, I'd love to see it. And I'll give you two weeks to do the research.
Columbia Sportswear Co. CIO and VP Mike Hirt outlined the partnership in terms of the "customer-driven growth revolution" alluded to by SAP's McDermott, saying that Microsoft and SAP are "helping us grow our wholesale and direct-to-consumer businesses." Hirt added that the "close alignment" between the software giants will provide the technological underpinnings to enable Columbia "to better serve our customers around the world." On top of that, Hirt noted that Microsoft and SAP are helping Columbia do what every company in today's savagely competitive marketplace must do: make and fulfill commitments to customers.
"We produce innovative products that allow our customers to pursue and enjoy their outdoor passions," Hirt said in the joint announcement. "Our partnership with Microsoft and SAP is essential to us continuing to deliver on that commitment."
Over at Costco, the emphasis was again on accelerating the move to digital business. Senior VP of Information Systems for Costco Wholesale Jim Rutherford said that this alliance of "key partners" SAP and Microsoft "will help drive our cloud strategy and digital business forward."
And at Coats, chief digital and technology officer Hizmy Hassen talked about how the partnership is improving everything from the company's data intelligence to its speed of execution and its need for cloud-driven innovation.
"With SAP HANA on Azure, we have the data intelligence to operate more efficiently across all aspects of our business and accelerate the delivery of finished goods to our customers," Hassen said in the announcement.
"The Microsoft and SAP alliance provides us with the assurance we need for our innovation in the cloud."
So: amid the saber-rattling and bombast and blunt-force competition that have been the hallmark of the Cloud Wars, it's quite compelling to see two of the world's leading enterprise-software and cloud-computing companies embrace the opportunity to collaborate deeply and broadly for the benefit of some very, very happy customers.
