>> Voiceover: Florida.
It's theCUBE!
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Now here's your host, Peter Burris.
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>> Welcome back to SAP Sapphire.
My name is Peter Burris.
We're a part of theCUBE,
and we're bringing you the signal from the noise
here at Sapphire.
And I've got a great guest,
An absolutely fantastic guest.
Akash Agarwal, who runs the mobility at SAP,
but specifically you own that crucial Apple relationship
that everybody's talking about
here in the show floor.
So, we're going to get a chance to talk
about the Apple relationship.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do first.
Yes, so I've been at SAP for a few years.
I came in from a mobile startup.
Focus here at SAP is to take our great products
into our customer base, and new customers
and help them with their mobile journey.
And mobility as you know,
is front and center of any digital transformation message
that's out there.
And SAP's helping take our customers
and the solutions that we have,
and make them more digestible, consumable on mobile.
>> Digestible, consumable on mobile.
Sounds like Apple.
So, one of the most important things we've heard this week,
is we heard new relationships
with Microsoft and some others.
But a lot of the buzz
has been about this Apple relationship.
Tell us a little bit about it.
>> Yeah, so the Apple announcement was,
in my humble opinion,
one of the biggest announcements that happened
in the history of SAP.
And, it's an iconic company,
it was two icons that got together,
and I think that the partnership
was about 20 months in the making behind the scenes.
>> Peter: 20 months?
>> Yes, I mean it takes a long time
to get two large companies to work together.
But the output and the end result, I think was fantastic.
As you saw, it was a very big announcement
and Bill McDermott quoted on Monday that we got something
in the order of four billion press hits
between when the announcement was done, and the Friday.
So the announcement was done on a Thursday.
Thursday and Friday of last week,
we were just swamped
by the media covering this announcement.
And I think that the most powerful thing
about this announcement is
it's two great technologies,
two great solutions coming together.
SAP bringing their leadership in the enterprise space,
and Apple bringing their beautiful iOS platform.
And basically the output of that
should benefit our customers, our partners,
and the whole world, you know?
Make it run better, run simple, and run beautiful.
>> Well Akash, I was actually going to say,
taking all those things,
but you kind of mentioned it also,
taking Apple's customers and SAP's customers,
which are sometimes very difficult to separate
when you think about how many employees
are under management of SAP software.
300,000 corporations on a global basis.
>> Akash: Right.
>> What should we expect to be
some of the first milestone outcomes of this partnership?
>> So the first few things
that you're going to start to see,
they have a big presence here at Sapphire as well.
But some of the big things
that you're going to see out of this partnership
is a new wave, a next generation of applications.
Apple is bringing their design expertise,
they're bringing their expertise of beautiful UI,
coupling it with our design concepts from Fury,
and helping us build beautiful and magical output
that will manifest itself in native iOS applications.
And these applications are
going to be centered around four major industries
in the next six to 12 months.
They are in the retail industry,
they're in the asset maintenance industry,
in the service industry,
with an application around project management.
And last, but not least, in the healthcare industry.
You heard big announcements today from Steve
saying on the connected health platform.
And we want to create next generation applications
that, you know, that help you interact with your doctor,
help you interact with your own health,
so you can capture all the post-medical output
that you've gotten and then interact with that
using beautiful iOS applications.
So those are some of the components that you will see.
And we're also building an SDK,
which is the best of our HANA Cloud platform,
and the best of iOS.
Couple that together into an SDK that you can take out
into the ecosystem from which they can develop
many new applications.
>> So that's really important.
So it's not just a partnership that allows SAP
to evolve its platform for mobile,
it's also an SDK that allows SAPs ecosystem
to evolve its platform in the context
of how Apple has shown us mobile works.
>> Absolutely, I mean you,
90% of this show floor is SAP ecosystem.
So every single partner can benefit from this partnership.
People who build solutions on SAP.
People who extend solutions.
And people who help integrate and implement solutions.
They can all benefit from this partnership, that's one.
Number two, we have 2.5 million developers right now
on our HANA Cloud Platform.
Immediately all those developers will have access to
this SDK from which they can build out
beautiful iOS experiences.
So that set one side of the ecosystem.
Then the other side of the ecosystem
is there are 11 million Apple developers out there
that have been primarily focused
on building consumer applications.
And now they will have an opportunity
to build applications in and around the SAP ecosystem.
SAP has been traditionally a difficult platform
to build around.
And now with this partnership, with this SDK,
those developers can build native, rich experiences
in the industry, in verticals, in horizontals,
that are leveraging mobility.
So it opens up a huge gamut of possibilities
for both us and for the developers that Apple
has fostered over the years.
So I think it's good for the industry
because one of the things we haven't seen,
and one of the reasons that this partnership came about,
was, we haven't seen the total consumerization of,
at the enterprise.
You know, you today, are using these applications
to interact with social media,
with other applications,
for your own daily lives.
But business and enterprise still has a long way to go.
And hopefully this partnership will help bridge that gap
in simplicity and in efficiency
and in design of making those applications seamless.
So when you leave the office and you get home,
or when you leave the home and you come to the office,
there's really no difference in the way you interact
with an application on a mobile phone.
>> So, the SAP ecosystem that's currently familiar
with SAP and the development tooling
and is now learning the HANA Cloud Platform stack.
Got a pretty good idea how you're going to get to them
and bring them along.
How are you going to get
those 11 million Apple developers excited
about now entering into
an set of new enterprise relationships
by utilizing what SAP can bring to them
from a business opportunity, and from, as you said,
change the world kind of perspective?
>> Yeah, look, I think developers are inherently,
you know, difficult to kind of change.
They're set in their ways.
However there are two ways we're going to be doing that.
One, I think, is we are building a joint iOS SAP Academy.
>> Peter: Okay. >> And that will take
the best learnings from what we do jointly with Apple
and how we build these applications.
Apple's going to call all to this academy
which will provide best practices
on using this SDK,
on building enterprise applications
that incorporate the best design philosophies
that we have from the enterprise,
and best design capabilities that Apple has.
So I think this academy will be kind of chartered
to make the message simple, digestible, and comsumable
by all developers.
>> Let me stop you right there. >> Akash: Yeah.
>> So when you say academy,
you're really talking about a connected
and coherent body of knowledge.
You're not talking about just a place.
So this will be online. Cause usu--
>> Akash: Exactly. >> Taught in schools.
>> Absolutely. So there's going to be,
you know, Apple has innovation and design centers.
SAP has design centers and design thinking capabilities.
We will bring this into physical locations,
we will bring this into virtual locations.
And we will market this at large.
In developer forums, in developer communities.
There will be people that, you know, for example,
our SIs, they have armies of people
that know SAP today.
That we want to create an army of people
that know both SAP mobility
and they also know HANA Cloud Platform,
and they know iOS.
Bring them all together
so they can kind of build the applications.
And I think, look, there's a lot of money to be made.
If you build great applications
that drive transformation, that drive value,
I think the developers will find a great way to monetize.
Now if you look on the App Store,
if you're a consumer app developer today,
you know the chances of getting that hit app are small.
But the chance of building an enterprise app
that creates value for, you know, a dozen customers
in a certain industry, could be very very valuable.
And so, I think that there are two attractions,
as I mentioned before.
One is obviously being able to make the technology easy,
make the technology consumable by developers
so they can kind of start using it.
Take the friction out of the process.
And number two, they've got to then see
an economic incentive to do that.
And I think the economic incentive is pretty clear.
Apple is very very serious about the enterprise.
They've got a 25 billion-- >> Peter: Yeah,
I was going to ask you about that.
>> Yeah, they have a 25 billion dollar business right now,
and it's something that they've taken very seriously.
They realize that, iPads and iOS devices today
have sort of creeped in from the BYOD movement.
But they want to see, you know, IT buy these devices,
give them to their employees
for running their business, for running, making decisions.
And I think application vendors like SAP can help, you know,
be a catalyst towards that kind of mission.
And you know, it's very hard to bet against Apple.
It's a company that sort of came from nowhere
and became the leading mobile brand in the world.
I think the same opportunity awaits them in the enterprise.
And I think they're taking a very deliberate approach
in the enterprise of not trying to go out there alone.
Enterprise is a complex market
and there are certain vendors, like SAP
that have been in the market for 40 years
and understand the customer problems,
understand how business is running and using software.
But the transformation is upon us.
And, you know, we go to market across 25 verticals,
each vertical is getting transformed in a major way
by technology, by mobility,
by the advent of the cloud, by mobility.
And I think this applications, the application
that we develop together in this partnership
will help capitalize that transformation.
>> Yeah, especially since Apple, as you said,
there are going to be a couple of different SDKs
that will be able to be, come together for developers.
But Apple's also shown historically
that, or revealed new ways to make great software.
And what the software should look like,
and how it should behave,
and the new gestures that are possible.
And you're going to be able to bring all that
into the ecosystem?
>> Yeah, the partnership is a very, very deep one.
And it is to share joint road maps
with what they're doing in iOS,
how we're looking at the world.
So let me give you an example,
so Apple has many APIs that they exposed today
to various developers.
HealthKit, CarKit, they have the, you know,
the 3D Touch system for basically being able to
put your thumb onto the, you know, the owner-known device
on the Home screen on the Apple iOS device
and then that takes you into the application,
it authenticates you.
Think about that authentication,
not only just authenticating you right on the device,
but authenticating you inside the enterprise.
Knowing that when a cache comes in,
he has authority for signing an expense report
up to $10,000 or $20,000.
So it's not just him getting into the device,
but it then picks up his role,
and then gives him the opportunity to look at
all the purchase orders, all the expenses that he can do.
So that's just an example of an integration
that can go, you know, much deeper than just the device.
So Apple has a number of technologies I think,
that will become very relevant as we integrate with them
in our applications for the enterprise.
>> Peter: So let's talk about--
>> The camera, the maps, you know you want to schedule
someone delivering cokes to various bottlers
and various suppliers.
They can kind of optimize that route,
leveraging the mapping technology,
leveraging the GPS technology.
The signals that are coming in on a real time basis
into the application.
>> Let's talk about how your customers may be able to behave.
Not your IT customers narrowly,
but you're over your aggregate businesses.
And let me test this on you.
So, historically, IT has wanted a very stable SAP platform.
Adding, you've done a phenomenal job
of adding new functionality to its capability,
SuccessFactors and others.
Meanwhile, the customers of those IT organizations,
the employees, and increasingly external folks,
want to be able to translate their expertise
and the knowledge that they have of a problem
into software as fast as they possibly can.
Because they want to be able to solve the problems
that are proximate to the actual, specifics of an event.
Follow me?
>> Yeah, yeah. >> Peter: Alright, so is this,
am I going to be in a position
where I can get an SAP compliant application
in the App Store that someone with the main knowledge
of a problem can go down and say,
"This'll solve the problem
and it's going to keep my IT organization happy
because it's SAP compliant."
Is that what we're talking about?
>> You know I think, you know that
that will depend on company by company.
I can't make a generic statement
on behalf of all the CIOs out there.
But certainly, you know, we're taking the friction
away from the process.
And one of the friction,
one of the major elements of the friction
has been the ability to get data out of SAP.
So with this SDK, with the HANA,
and I think that the cloud is helping.
The fact that we're putting our HANA services
in the cloud with HANA Cloud Platform,
our objective is to make it easier to get at that data.
And Apple's objective is to interact
with that data on a mobile device.
On a disconnected device that's running
on a 3G or a 4G or a internet-connected device.
And the ability to be able to do that
will definitely create a lot more interactions.
It will create the ability
for either IT to develop those applications much faster
or for some third parties to do that.
So the end result is,
if the customer wants to have access to some data
this way our that way,
they'll be able to ask for it
and they'll be able to get it much faster.
So what it does, it creates, from an SAP perspective,
it creates a tremendous more amount of value
for our customers and it also increases the engagement.
Because data just being data is no good.
Data needs to be consumed.
Data is the new oil, you've heard that term.
>> Peter: Oh totally, totally >> So, the applications
and interactions that are available
with that data on iOS are they just going to be a catalyst?
>> Peter: Yeah, well-- >> For enabling that.
>> Well look, one of the needs of digitization
is to be able to take expertise and knowledge and practice
and translate it into software as fast as possible.
And this relationship,
we can see how this can accelerate that whole process
and great software gets created.
So one last question.
What's the buzz other than the Apple SAP relationship,
what's the buzz that you're getting from the show floor?
>> I think the buzz every year
is that SAP is transforming itself.
Every year people feel it's a company
that they really want to do business with.
Even more than they did last year.
That's kind of what I take away.
I've been here about three and a half years
and every year I've seen,
I'm seeing SAP becoming nimbler,
SAP appreciating that the world around them is changing.
Helping the customers, you know,
get on that change management story very quickly.
With the solutions, with the partnerships,
and with agility and I think that, you know,
it's not your old grandmother's SAP anymore.
It's a company that's becoming nimble,
it's a company that's becoming flexible,
you know it's a company that's demonstrating
that you know, people want value.
People want ROI fast and people, you know,
want to see empathy across the board.
>> Peter: Sure! >> And I think that
is something that, I feel that,
it's not something you get to straight away.
And there's definitely an incremental change.
I think that's sort of the major takeaway here.
And I think there's a lot of solutions here
that can really help any kind of business.
We're sitting amongst the SME.
Sort of stand here, a lot of people
don't associate SAP with small business.
But there's a lot of good initiatives going on in that area.
And you know, you can find customers
that, you know, are Fortune 10 companies here.
And you can also find a Fortune 5000.
>> Peter: Right. >> And then startups as well.
>> Peter: Alright. >> I think
it's a cross-section of companies.
>> Super! Akash Agarwal thank you very very much.
This is the gentleman who owns
the Apple Relationship at SAP.
Phenomenal advance in technology
and in the technology industry that's going to point
to a lot of good change on the horizon.
Thank you very much-- >> Akash: Thank you so much.
>> For joining us here in theCUBE.
My name is Peter Burris.
theCUBE here at SAP Sapphire.
We're going to be back for even more
of Sapphire in theCUBE in a few moments.
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