SAP Ecosystem

As part of the platform strategy, SAP has built and continues to grow an open ecosystem that drives adoption of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA); fosters co-innovation between SAP, customers, and partners; and delivers value for all participants. Leveraging deep industry knowledge, a diverse community of partners, and SAP NetWeaver as a platform for product and service innovation, SAP and its ecosystem are driving new dimensions of collaboration – turning breakthrough ideas into innovative solutions for customers.

• SAP NetWeaver partner community: The SAP NetWeaver community continues to gain momentum with more than 2,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) that build software for SAP NetWeaver.
• SAP's diverse partner ecosystem: The SAP ecosystem is comprised of a hugely diverse set of partners, including software solution providers, value-added resellers, systems integrators, and technology infrastructure providers. Today, SAP has more than 2,200 channel partners that serve the small to midsize enterprise (SME) community. Among the technology infrastructure partners working with SAP are Adobe, Avaya, Cisco, Computer Associates, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Network Appliance, Novell, Research in Motion, RSA Security, Sun, and Symantec.
• SAP Developer Network (SDN): With over one million registered users, more than 5,500 daily forum posts, and an average question-response time of less than 20 minutes, SDN is the central resource for the SAP ecosystem to collaborate and co-innovate in developing solutions on SAP NetWeaver and to contribute to the pool of shared knowledge among ISVs, systems integrators, developers, and consultants.
• Business Process Expert Community: Standing side-by-side with SDN as a resource and collaboration environment, the Business Process Expert Community has more than 425,000 registered members residing across 200 countries and territories. This forum encompasses business analysts, business consultants, process consultants, application consultants, and process developers.
• Industry value networks (IVNs): Sixteen active IVNs bring together customers, partners, and SAP to co-innovate and quickly develop solutions to solve industry-specific customer challenges.
• Enterprise Services Community (ES Community): ES Community currently has more than 320 members working collaboratively to define enterprise services. More than 30 community definition groups and 10 advisory groups each include an average of more than 10 active companies co-innovating in face-to-face and virtual meetings, each investing about 15 person-days to each group.
• SAP NetWeaver Fund: SAP established the global SAP NetWeaver Fund in May 2006 to focus on strategic investments in companies building solutions on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. To date, SAP has funded minority investments in ArisGlobal Holdings LLC, Conformia, Nakisa, Questra Corporation, and Visiprise.

SAP Partners

Partnerships and strategic alliances are a key element of our efforts to broaden the solutions and services offered to SAP customers and to extend the markets for our products and services. We characterize our partnerships and strategic alliances into eight categories that together constitute a partner services network.

The partner categories are: services partners, technology partners, software partners, hosting partners, business partners, content partners, education partners, and support partners.

Within most categories, our partners may achieve the status of a local or global partner. We expect our alliance partners to provide customers with joint strategic solutions. Our partners generally have a strong position in a particular line of business or cross-industry process and complement the range of SAP solutions in these areas. Our partner network includes thousands of companies, including independent software vendors, systems integrators, and business procurement outsourcing (BPO) providers across all partner categories.

SAP University Alliances

The SAP University Alliances program works with educational institutions around the world to provide students with valuable training and curricula to pursue attractive and rewarding career opportunities. By creating, capturing, organizing and disseminating intellectual capital, the SAP University Alliances program establishes SAP as an educational and career development force around the globe. The program gives educational institutions access to SAP business solutions to help students develop career skills that will help them make an impact on the way business is done throughout the world. In so doing, the program supports the development of a highly skilled and educated workforce to fuel future innovation potential and thus contribute to economic development on a grand scale.

Facts About SAP University Alliances

Member institutions 800 (175 in Americas, 135 in Asia Pacific, and 490 in EMEA) Countries active in the program 30 Students accessing SAP solutions annually More than 150,000