IBM and SAP Expand Partnership to Bring SAP Applications to the SoftLayer Cloud

ARMONK, N.Y., June 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that it has expanded its global partnership with SAP to deliver the SAP HANA® platform, the SAP HANA ONE service and other SAP® applications on the cloud platform from SoftLayer, an IBM Company. The SoftLayer platform has been verified by SAP to run SAP applications, including SAP Business Suite software and SAP BusinessObjects™ solutions.

This extends and complements the existing capabilities provided by IBM to run SAP solutions on IBM Cloud Managed Services. With Cloud Managed Services and the SoftLayer platform, customers will have access to 40 data centers across five continents to run SAP applications for their enterprises. SoftLayer and IBM provide an expansive set of cloud capabilities for SAP solutions to address development testing, production and SAP HANA-based workloads.

"Businesses today are looking for ways to lower the cost of deployment and greater efficiency in addressing new market opportunity," said IBM General Manager of Cloud Services James Comfort. "By delivering SAP applications via IBM cloud technologies, companies will have consistent access to a global infrastructure that will assist them in tackling business needs with the speed and efficiency needed in today's business climate."

Through this expanded partnership, clients will now be enabled to more quickly expand their businesses into new geographies with more consistent global deployments, which are expected to improve security and boost compliance with local laws. At the same time, it is anticipated that customers running SAP applications on SoftLayer will be able to achieve the following:

• Reduced support costs
• Speed up development and test instantly with no capital outlay required
• Deployment of hybrid cloud solutions on Softlayer and Cloud Managed Services
• Development and testing of SAP HANA using SAP HANA One with click thru license capabilities

"Delivering SAP applications via the IBM cloud provides customers the choice they desire to respond in real time to changing industry dynamics that impact their business," said Robert Enslin, president of Global Customer Operations and a member of the Executive Board and the Global Managing Board, SAP AG. "We anticipate that this approach will prove valuable to enable customers to easily scale to constantly increasing business requirements."

In addition, IBM and Virtustream are working together to bring an additional option for managing environments running SAP solutions on the SoftLayer platform. IBM is working with Virtustream to use its xStream cloud management platform software for both fully managed and customer managed environments. In addition, Virtustream will also be using SoftLayer infrastructure to expand its service beyond current locations and capacity. The partnership between IBM and Virtustream will enable companies to easily move existing mission-critical SAP applications to the cloud with added confidence.

"We are excited to partner with IBM to address the explosive market of migrating, running, and managing mission-critical SAP applications in the cloud," said Chairman and CEO of Virtustream Rodney Rogers. "We believe the combination of Virtustream's cloud management software and SoftLayer's cloud infrastructure will be the premier solution offered in the market today."

With the addition of Softlayer to Cloud Managed Services capabilities, customers can now choose to tap into cloud resources and run SAP applications themselves, select specific managed services, or request a full stack of integrated managed services. Companies will now have extended choices and new levels of control to design a cloud environment better suited to their business.

For more information, visit IBM in booth 416 at the SAPPHIRE® NOW conference, being held June 3-5 in Orlando, Fla.

About IBM Cloud Computing

IBM has helped more than 30,000 clients around the world with 40,000 industry experts. Since its acquisition in 2013, IBM SoftLayer has served 4,500 new cloud clients. Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of 40 data centers worldwide. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 17 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more than 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com.  Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

SAP, SAP HANA, SAPPHIRE and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.

Business Objects, BusinessObjects and the Business Objects logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or other countries.  Business Objects is an SAP company.

All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

SAP Forward-looking Statement
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

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IBM Media Relations
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SOURCE IBM