Microsoft Azure and SAP expanded partnership meeting diverse needs of the enterprise

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I found this news of great interest to the enterprise after speaking to my enterprise colleagues.

An extension of the 20 year partnership between Microsoft and SAP was announced today in a post from Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice-president, cloud and enterprise networking Microsoft.  Scott Guthrie, executive vice-president is quoted extensively in announcements today in the media about addressing the diverse needs of the enterprise through this partnership.

86 percent of global Fortune 500 use SAP software and by the end of June SAP will certify to run on Azure, SAP Business Suite software, SAP Business All-In-One solution, SAP Mobile Platform, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP ASE) and the developer edition of the SAP HANA® platform. Enterprises will be able to move existing applications and services, or deploy new ones in minutes using the SAP Cloud Appliance Library tool, to Azure and benefit from nearly unlimited computing capacity.

Customers already use the SAP Gateway for Microsoft to leverage SAP applications and data through Microsoft Office.  Microsoft is taking this up a level where customers will have the general availability of Power BI connectivity to SAP BusinessObjects and an improved SAP Gateway for Microsoft.  The new Gateway for Microsoft, which is expected to be available by the end of 2014, will allow customers to access SAP data and processes through Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. Developers can also use this new Gateway to build applications quickly and easily by leveraging key Office 365 and Azure services like document collaboration, workflow, enterprise social and identity.

“Monday’s announcement aims to extend the companies’ long-term partnership in three critical areas: enterprise cloud computing with business-critical SAP applications certification for Microsoft Azure; improved interoperability between data from SAP applications and Microsoft Office, including general availability of connectivity between SAP® BusinessObjects™ business intelligence (BI) solutions and Microsoft’s Power BI offering; and mobile productivity with expanded development and support for Windows and Windows Phone 8.1.”