SAP supports ERP on HANA

SAP plans to roll out support for the enterprise resource planning (ERP) module within its flagship Business Suite product family on the HANA in-memory database platform in the fourth quarter of this year, executive board member and technology chief Vishal Sikka said in an interview on Wednesday, Computerworld reports.

The vendor had previously stated its intention to support Business Suite on HANA, a move that would pave the way for SAP application-customer defections from rival Oracle's database, but until now, no specific date had been made public.

"It's a bold statement to say they can do this by Q4," said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, Tech World notes.

"If they can do this, it means they've solved a lot of the technical issues with HANA. This means they have the beginning of a next-gen platform for their apps."

Other modules in the Business Suite will also be ported to HANA, but no roadmap has been set as of yet, Sikka said. But starting with ERP, which includes financials, human resources and operations functionality, is a significant step since it is the most complex and central component of the suite, he added.

The ERP module of Business Suite to be ported to HANA includes financials and operations functionality as well as human resources, ITProPortal says.

Interestingly, ERP is the most complicated and also the central component of this suite, as stated by Sikka. Other modules may also be ported to HANA in the future.

SAP also disclosed its fourth-quarter along with year-end earnings for HANA. The vendor said revenue of HANA is above $208 million for the year, which was more than the initial projections made by the company.