SAP just created a new way to buy its super-speedy HANA in-memory database, via a cloud service called the Enterprise Cloud.
This isn't actually the first time SAP has made HANA available in the cloud. In October, SAP released HANA on Amazon's cloud for a mere 99 cents per hour (plus a few other fees). But, the Amazon version of Hana was a smaller, slower version than the full-strength database appliance.
Enterprise Cloud will not have such restrictions.
SAP founder and chairman Hasso Plattner promised that Enterprise Cloud would be a less-expensive way to buy HANA.
However, SAP didn't publish pricing information, IDC analyst David Bradshaw pointed out in an interview with V3's Rosalie Marshall. In fact, SAP has never published pricing info on HANA, except to confirm that it won't wheel and deal on HANA pricing.
On top of that, SAP is using a "bring your own license" model. That means that before enterprises can use this cloud, they already must have bought SAP software the old-fashioned way, via software licenses.
So this is more like a baby step toward converting SAP from a software company to a cloud company. It also helps SAP combat Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's claim that SAP is way behind in cloud computing. Ellison's one-and-only tweet was a slam at SAP's cloud.
Eventually, SAP envisions its cloud to be an ecosystem similar to Amazon's.
SAP says it already has 60 customers running applications on the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and about 40 startups building applications for the platform.
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