>> [Voiceover] Live from Orlando, Florida
it's theCUBE covering Sapphire NOW.
Headline sponsored by SAP HANA Cloud.
The leader in platform as a service.
With support from Consel, Inc, the cloud internet company.
Now, here are your hosts John Furrier and Peter Burris.
>> We're live?
Okay, we're live.
We're back here, live at SAP Sapphire.
I'm John Furrier and we are just looking
at the site of our guest, Sundeep Ravande,
who's the president co-founder of
Innovapptive, and Thorsten Leiduck,
vice-president of Platform Partners at SAP.
Welcome to theCUBE.
I got so excited I missed the intro.
(laugh)
So, one of the things that's going on, is obviously,
the certifications of apps.
It's kind of a nuance story.
The partnering and the platforms that are out there
are enabling the ecosystems to grow very rapidly
and coming down to this notion,
are you a platform or are you a tool?
Developers with have platform-like features
but ultimately, if they're in a big enterprise ecosystem,
they're just a feature or a tool.
It's the classic line,
"Oh, that's not a company, that's a feature."
That used to be the story for venture backed companies
10 years ago, but now you can really do well being
a tool or a feature.
>> [Voiceover] Yup.
>> If you're on a platform.
Sundeep, you do this.
>> [Voiceover] Yes.
>> Share with the audience, what's going on in the market?
How are you guys succeeding?
And what's your company doing?
>> So, when we started off, like I mentioned earlier
in our conversation,
we come from management consulting backgrounds
and we understand business processes
and the gaps in business processes,
and where mobile can dramatically transform
how people connect with processes.
We evaluated several platforms back in the day,
where we had an opportunity to look at different platforms.
We saw SAP mobile platform back in the day before HANA Cloud
platform was available.
As our doorway and segue to be able to create
applications that can resolve those pain points
in the business process areas where mobile
is mission critical.
We built upon that but then we quickly, also realized that
if these product type solutions cannot be personalized
to meet specific business needs,
then it's hard to capitalize and monetize on that.
>> And what does your company do?
Just share, just real quickly, what does your company do?
>> Absolutely.
Our focus is really to enable instant digitization.
By connecting people, processes, and things
and the way we approach that is through a very large
portfolio of mobile solutions, that go across
multiple lines of businesses pre-packaged.
Leveraging SAP mobile platform and the SAP HANA cloud
platform and then we built a patent pending technology
which is called the Rapid Application Configurator Engine,
that allows instant personalization which ties back
to the mission I spoke about.
>> So, you put a wrapper around a traditional app,
SAP app, and brought some integration or modernization?
>> So, the applications are Innovapptive's IP,
but we are leveraging SAP's technology.
Then there is the case to develop these applications.
>> [John] Okay, got it, okay.
>> Yup.
>> Thorston, talk about the dynamic.
Is this a new breed of partner, or is there a trend here,
where you start to see these new relationships?
Share the trends.
>> Yeah, so, this is, I think, one of the amazing stories
which we have to tell, right?
When SAP really invested into Ecosystem
on the platform side, and I think everybody agrees,
that without an ecosystem and successful ecosystem
nobody has been successful adopting the platforms.
We have been able to attract really a huge amount
of new companies working with SAP.
So, in fact, 60% of all the partners who are part
of the PartnerEdge program, how we call it,
are basically not new to SAP.
They're born in the cloud, native mobile social,
so they really add these great capabilities,
like Innovapptive did, to the ecosystem.
And basically compliment the core portfolio
of SAP very well.
>> So if you think about SAP's history,
SAP has been a company that showed a very large, integrated,
comprehensive approach to thinking about applications.
>> [Voiceover] Right.
>> A lot of your competitors started down at hardware,
middleware, database, and eventually built themselves up.
>> [Voiceover] Right.
>> Platforms tend to be more comprehensive-large.
Does the historical perspective of SAP comprehensive
give you an advantage as we think about platforms,
versus some of the other companies that are trying
to cobble things together from
the piece parts a little bit more?
>> Yeah, I absolutely believe this for various reasons.
So when you think about the opportunity any partner gets
when he joins an SAP platform, it is actually
instant access to 300,000-plus customers, right?
But it's not just customers, it's also business content.
So when you think about HANA Cloud platform,
it's the only platform on the market who has really
business access to all the various back-end systems
of the customers, right?
So think about business read ERP,
all the different disciplines when you think about
line-of-business, HR, success factors,
procurement, Ariba, Conquer, you know, so you can name it.
So basically, the difference, I think,
which we have from a value proposition is that we have
very broad platform capabilities, but we have, also,
the business content access,
and this is exactly what the other companies are lacking
when you start something up from scratch,
where you don't have this kind of custom environment
which you can expose to the ecosystem.
>> You're a sandbox, really.
HANA Cloud is basically a money-making sandbox
for developers because SAP already does big business
and pretty much everything runs on SAP.
>> [Voiceover] Right.
>> So for a developer to jump into this environment,
allows him to do some integration,
so if someone wants to build a custom app,
they can just jump right in.
>> Absolutely.
>> Is that the main, am I getting it right?
>> Yeah, absolutely.
So we have three key-use cases.
Either companies build new applications,
that's what Innovapptive did.
You can integrate, this is the second one.
And then the third one is obviously
that you extend the existing SAP solutions
on the customer's side,
and drive innovation in the cloud.
So when you think about HANA Cloud platform,
it's really a naturality for the customers
to drive innovation in the cloud.
And they can basically keep a stable environment
on the back-end side,
and the ecosystem is obviously enabling this kind
of innovation, right?
So for the customers who really want to get
to the next level, they have access to a value portfolio
of partner solutions which they can instantly deploy,
where they can instantly consume value to get basically
this innovation into the company.
And this helps them to execute
the traditional transformation story.
>> I want to build on that 300,000 number, though,
because that 300,000 number is companies.
>> That's customers, yes.
>> But it's companies that are customers.
>> [Voiceover] Companies, yes, yeah.
>> So how many actual users are in your ecosystem right now?
I mean, it's what, 1000, 1500, 2000, 5000?
On average at your company.
So we're talking hundreds of millions of people are
under management, so to speak, within the SAP ecosystem.
Is that accurate?
>> Yeah, so, I mean, obviously HANA Cloud platform is,
actually any customer of SAP should consider
to have it, right?
And we're pushing this as a strategic platform
with all the sales cycles.
So, what it means is actually, when you buy,
when a customer buys success factors,
he needs to think about, you know,
how do I add the other solution components?
How do I keep basic integration going?
HANA Cloud platform is enabling that.
When you're thinking about IUT scenarios,
when you're thinking about youth experience mobile,
you know, independently, if you are on business read,
if you are the next generation business for business read,
you know, it doesn't matter,
you need an extension capability to be agile and to extend.
So, we have driven HANA Cloud platform via
all the sales channels,
via all the portfolios which we have in SAP
to our customers.
So basically our goal is to drive
HANA Cloud platform adoption, basically very broad
and ideally every customer should have it.
That's the goal.
>> And a great example is, you know,
one of our top-selling applications is
in the enterprise asset management space, right,
where we're offering a mobile enterprise asset management
solution for preventive maintenance
and calibration maintenance, on the cloud, liberating SAP,
where we can deliver it both as a software as a service,
or we partner up with SAP to deliver that as a platform
as a service, and the software running on top.
The great example of the value that we see
as independent developers in the platform is
to take this above and beyond,
because our customers are asking us,
"Great, you gave me preventative maintenance;
I'd like to move to predictive maintenance models."
The fact that we're already on the HANA Cloud platform,
I have the ability as an independent developer now
to leverage the HANA databases,
to drive predictive analytics,
and I can also bring the Internet of Things services to drive
sensor-based connectivity that can further monetize
and give me, also, opportunities as a business.
>> That's extensibility,
so you provide the headroom, basically.
So I got to ask the question,
I'm sorry, Peter, go ahead.
>> No, no, I was going to, very quickly.
So one of the things that SAP did right early on
was start to weave together its partners into something
that looked like a network.
So partners especially, application providers,
and service providers can work inside the SAP ecosystem
to add new value.
Are you actually starting to extend that now,
and make it possible or easier for partners
to use each other's tools, to use each other's APIs,
so that you are able to publish out,
and other partners are able to apply your stuff
within the SAP ecosystem to drive new levels of value?
Is that becoming a feature
of how you're presenting the ecosystem?
>> Yes, it is.
I mean, even though, you know,
it's obviously kind of roadmap
and steps which have to happen
to fully enable that, but, you know,
when you think about cloud foundry,
which is basically an open platform standard,
which I have joined by many of the IT companies.
What it does, it gives openers to developers
to leverage their tools, their development tools,
to deploy it.
And, in principle, you get access via this construct
to multiple ecosystems.
So if a company has built Application A within Ecosystem A,
it's immediately available also in all those ecosystems
where cloud foundry is represented, right?
So it's a huge value from reach perspective.
The second important area with regards to
where we cross-promote is obviously
what we call the micro-services area.
So we have
micro-service framework where partners can
publish their micro-services where customers can pick
and orchestrate, and also developers obviously
can pick and orchestrate those micro-services
and build them into their applications.
So basically we promote the cross-pollination of innovation
within an ecosystem via kind
of market micro-services concept and framework.
>> But are you also at the same time coming up
with standardized content,
or do you envision that there's going to be an SAP way
of doing business?
SAP's been also at the vanguard of thinking
about some business model innovations.
Inside their ecosystem, is there going to be an SAP way
of doing business that makes it easier to do contracting
and joint go-to-market, and other types of things?
>> Absolutely, yeah, sure.
So, I mean, from a go-to-market perspective obviously
what we do is we publish all these solutions
on the SAP online app center.
That's where customers can go to discover, find,
and basically try those solutions.
Customers can navigate by industry LOBs,
so it's very comprehensive,
and it gives them a good overview of what is available
in the ecosystem.
The second important thing is where we empowered our
partners to be successful is we implemented a model
that companies like Innovapptive can bundle their solution
with the HANA Cloud platform.
On a very simplified model, so we basically asked for a
revenue share for their, based on their application value.
It's simple, it's predictable,
and it allows them to consume all the parts
of HANA Cloud platform end-to-end, without thinking about,
"Hey do I need to switch on another storage element?
"Do I need to switch on the portal?
"Do I need to consume some kind of mobile services?"
We, on principle, don't care.
>> Take us through that.
This is, I think, the big deal you guys have,
as an opportunity.
>> Monetization, yes.
>> Is to really onboard developers in a way that's elegant,
but yet they get in and they get to enjoy the benefits.
I'm a developer, we have an app;
take me through what's in it for me.
>> Yeah, okay, so
>> Why do I join, what do I get, do I get people to talk to?
>> So the reason why you develop is to build something
which you can sell to customers, right?
>> Yes, we have an app.
>> Exactly, so we have built an engine engagement framework
which guides you very effectively through
the different steps in the lifecycle to reach this point.
So we give you access to developer resources,
HANA Cloud platform, we give you enablement packages,
including high-tech enablement for strategic areas
where we know you compliment our portfolio very well,
to get you effectively trained to build those solutions.
>> [Voiceover] Who pays for that?
>> SAP takes care of that, right.
So we give every partner standard enablers.
>> So the developer does no out-of-pocket for the developer.
>> No out-of-pocket.
You know, I was talking price
for close to the end, but I can tell you the investment--
>> So far so good.
>> The investment for any partner is literally 3,500 euros
per year to be part of the program
and get all those services which I was referring to.
>> So is it upfront or that kind of back-ended?
>> That's upfront, it's an annual subscription.
>> [Voiceover] Okay.
>> To get the SAP partner status,
to get access to developer resources,
to get access to enablement training packages.
We provide feedback on the solution use cases,
in terms of is this complimenting what SAP has,
it is the role of SAP
so that partners don't make the wrong investments.
We review the solution from a quality perspective
to ensure it can be deployed to customers seamlessly
and instantly if a customer wants to buy it.
And then we promote it via the various routes to market,
I was relating to the app center as the digital property,
epost, which is the embedded license model
where we empowered our partners to,
based on a revenue share model,
to sell these solutions self-sufficiently.
And obviously in certain cases we orchestrate engagement
with the SAP field as well.
>> So the fixed fee for the subscription, I get that,
the developer fee, I got that.
The out-of-pocket is going to be you're actually
hiring developers for labor to write the code.
And then if I go to the marketplace,
if I go to market with SAP,
that's where the rev share comes in.
>> Correct.
>> Okay.
>> And other partners.
The distribution.
>> Right, so when we sell like, you know,
say a 100 license deal, an annual subscription deal,
we would typically, you know, do a percentage revenue share
with SAP, and, you know, SAP has shown tremendous
flexibility in how they help us monetize on that model.
So we work closely with Thorsten and the different
go-to-market team and the GCO guys that come together
to make that deal happen.
>> And you're obviously here on theCUBE, so you're a fan,
so you're supportive, right?
So you think this is a good deal for developers.
>> Well, you know, quite frankly the success we've had so far
I mean two years in a row we won SAP pinnacle awards.
We have only good things to say, quite frankly.
I have another thing that I can share as well, you know,
where I would like to see improvement.
>> [Voiceover] Please share.
>> I think the areas where I think we need some clarity,
apart from the fantastic technology stuff
and monetization models, is really the roadmap alignment.
We don't want, as a developer we're always threatened
as a small developer, that, you know, what if SAP comes
>> You don't want to get rolled over by the big elephant.
>> Yeah, so, you know, our ask of SAP has always been
that if you're spending so much money,
and I'm getting investment money now
into building our business out of the platform,
that we align well as true partners in the ecosystem.
>> [Voiceover] Yeah, yeah, over time.
>> Over a period of time.
>> You don't want to be in the cross-hairs of a trajectory.
>> Yeah, so, you know, just speaking very straight forward
and honestly, that's really where we as developers believe
that, you know, we have made some fraction in the market
with a certain product,
we don't want our partner to compete with that.
Just like for start commerce sales force does not do that.
They let the partner ecosystem progress,
which I think SAP's already committed.
>> Yeah, when Microsoft used to have
a great developer system,
they were very clear how they articulated
where their core was.
So essentially the train is going down the track.
And everyone wanted to draft off that.
I think that's right.
So, Thorsten, share us a URL;
where do people get information?
So I'm an app builder, I want to check this out.
Where do I go?
>> So, the easiest place to go we have is the app center.
So it's www.sapapdc, you know,
that's the app developer center,
and that's where you find all the information.
It's basically guarded-entry, and
>> SAP.com/ or?
>> No, not .com; it's really just SAPADPC.
>> [Voiceover] AD?
>> ADPC, for Application Development Partner Center, right.
And that's where all partners would land to basically
get information on the program, but also to sign up.
So we help partners to give,
we give them a complete overview on the program
along the various steps, get started, development.
You find the enablement training materials there
to a certain extent, even the go-to-market support is
already there, so they really fully understand what is
ahead of them, what are the different steps,
and where to find it.
And they sign up electronically on this page as well.
>> [Voiceover] SAP
>> [Voiceover] AD
>> [Voiceover] PC
>> PC, okay got it.
Just make sure to pull the URL up.
Well, thanks, guys, so much for coming in,
and, again, Pete and I were just talking
about the developer opportunity.
No one really has won this new, modern developer community,
yet, certainly a great track, you see a lot of growth
over 10 years with Amazon.
You guys have a great developer community in the enterprise,
and new opportunities are there, right?
So it's going to be fun to watch over the next few years.
Thanks for coming on theCUBE.
>> Yeah thank you for having us,
and we're very confident, right?
>> Yeah.
(laughs)
>> We are here, live, at SAP, you're watching theCUBE,
thanks for watching.
We'll be right back.