Tag: SAP

Panama president linked to SAP bribery case

Posted on December 30, 2015 by - News

indexThe former president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli might have been involved in a bribery scheme that helped SAP to sell millions of dollars in software to Panama.

According to Reuters, being SAP’s business partner is just one of the crimes that the former president faces at the moment.  He says they are all politically motivated.

The main case was against Vicente Garcia, a former executive at SAP, the German soutfit which makes esoteric business software which no -one is really sure what it does.

Garcia, 65, was sentenced to 22 months in prison on December 16 by a US court in the Northern District of California, after pleading guilty to conspiring to bribe Panamanian officials to secure contracts for SAP software.

Judge Charles R. Breyer’s told Garcia to avoid contact with “any co-conspirator in this case,” naming Martinelli and six others, as a condition of his future supervised release.

Martinelli has not been charged with any wrongdoing in Garcia’s case in fact his brief claims the former president had never met Garcia.

SAP fired Garcia in April 2014 and is cooperating in the ongoing investigation. The US Securities and Exchange Commission said Garcia “circumvented SAP’s internal controls” to fund the bribe payments.

Garcia admitted using bribe payments to secure a software contract to update technology for Panama’s social security agency. The scheme, which ran from 2009 until 2013, won an SAP reseller a $14.5 million contract. SAP itself received around $2.1 million in software sales thanks to the bribes, according to court records.

 

Salesforce does better than expected

Posted on November 19, 2015 by - News

Salesforce_Logo_2009Salesforce has surprised the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street by raising its full-year revenue forecast for the fourth time after reporting a quarterly adjusted profit above market expectations.

As you might expect, the rise in money has been driven by higher demand for its web-based sales and marketing software.

San Francisco-based Salesforce has been benefiting as more businesses choose cheaper and easier cloud software services. The company provides its services online, with no software directly installed on PCs.

The company’s adjusted operating margin expanded to 13.3 percent in the third quarter ended October 31 from 11.3 percent a year earlier.

Salesforce raised its revenue forecast for the year ending January 2016 to $6.64 billion-$6.65 billion from $6.60 billion-$6.63 billion.

Revenue rose 23.7 percent to $1.71 billion in the third quarter. Analysts on average had expected $1.70 billion.

Salesforce has been slowly killing off Oracle and SAP in the customer relationship management software market.

The company’s net loss narrowed to $25.2 million from $38.9 million a year earlier.

 

Moose-sized SAP project mothballed in Alaska

Posted on August 18, 2015 by - News

mooseAlaskan natives are a little restless about a huge SAP project which is supposed to have been running since 2011.

The project, which said enterprise resource planning (ERP) software implementation, when they bought it was supposed to be state of the art. While it is unlikely that anyone really knew what the software did, they did know that it cost a lot of moose antlers to buy.

Now the City of Anchorage, Alaska has put the project on hold again and this time, its future is far from certain.

The project is tens of millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule and the local council is not happy about putting more money into it.

At the time of its launch, the project was intended to replace Anchorage’s legacy

PeopleSoft system with ERP software from SAP. It was originally planned to cost $9.8 million and to go live at the start of 2013.

However toward the end of last year officials began an independent review of the project, after it missed its second “go-live” date. It has spent $35 million so far and budgeted another $11 million for the project, but a further $20 million to $30 million is expected to be required to complete it.

The council is looking at proceeding with a scaled-down version, or scrapping the lot.

SAP software is used successfully by tens of thousands of government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, financial departments in the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, and counties such as Howard County, Maryland, SAP said.

No one is sure quite how the project got to a 600 percent overrun, but it appears that the Alaskans did not have anyone who really understood the project or how it all worked.  But then they did buy SAP and anyone who knows what its business software does is worth their weight in HP printer ink and is as rare as a left wing politician in the US.

SAP boss alleged to have bribed Panama officials

Posted on August 17, 2015 by - News

PanamaHats1902The maker of expensive esoteric software, which no one knows what it truly does, has been involved in a conspiracy to bribe Panamanian officials in a bid to secure government contracts, it’s been alleged.

Vicente Eduardo Garcia was SAP’s vice president of global and strategic accounts for Latin America from February 2008 until April 2014, when he was fired. With the plea, he admitted to participating in a scheme to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribing foreign officials to obtain business.

He will be sentenced in December 16 before Senior District Court Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California.

It seems that the company is denying it knew anything about the scheme and seems to be blaming Garcia.

SAP said it will continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission on the investigation, a spokesman said.

Indeed there is some evidence that Garcia “circumvented SAP’s internal controls, falsified the company’s books and records, and made false statements to SAP in order to lower the price of SAP software to fund the bribery and kickback scheme.”

In 2009 SAP hoped to obtain a multimillion-dollar contract to provide a Panamanian state agency with a technology upgrade package.

Garcia admitted that he conspired with others, including advisors and consultants to SAP, to pay bribes, disguised as sham contracts and false invoices, to Panamanian government officials.

SAP’s Panamanian channel partner secured the contract for $14.5 million, which included $2.1 million in SAP licences. Not long after, the Panamanian government awarded the channel partner additional contracts involving SAP products, the DoJ said.

The SEC said that it had settled with Garcia for enabling SAP to sell software to a partner in Panama at discounts of up to 82 percent while also receiving kickbacks himself.

Garcia has agreed to pay $85,965, the total amount of kickbacks he received, plus prejudgment interest, amounting to a total of $92,395.

SAP does well in the cheap cloud market

Posted on July 21, 2015 by - News

cloudbustThe maker of expensive, esoteric business software, which no-one is really sure what it does, is making a lot of dosh flogging cheap cloud products.

SAP reported mixed quarterly results as revenues topped expectations due to a surge in newer, lower-margin cloud software.

This should have been good but it stuffed up company margins pushing down profit to the very low end of forecasts.

SAP said second-quarter operating profit, excluding special items,rose 13 percent to $1.50 billion, which was the low end of what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street expected.

Europe’s largest software maker reported total revenue of $5.38 billion, up 20 percent.

Operating margin dropped to 28 percent from 29.8 percent a year ago. The decline reflected increased investments in SAP’s newer cloud-based software services, where revenues from new sales come later in the form of subscription payments.

SAP is taking on Oracle, IBM and Microsoft to boost Internet-based software sales and fend off pure cloud-based rivals Salesforce.com, Workday and, less directly, industry pacesetter Amazon.com’s web unit.

Salesforce.com in May raised its revenue forecast for the full year, after the cloud software company reported a profit for the first time in seven quarters.

SAP’s cloud subscription and support revenue from continuing operations jumped 129 percent. On the same basis, revenues from its mainstay software license business rose 13 percent. Without currency effects, software licenses grew 3 percent.

 

Microsoft bids for Salesforce

Posted on May 6, 2015 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft is looking at buying Salesforce.

The cloud software provider has been approached by another, unknown, buyer, and told Microsoft, which put in a bid of its own.

Salesforce, which has a market value of almost $50 billion, is working with two investment banks to determine a response to approaches, two of the people said.

It has the option of telling any buyer to go forth and multiply or working out a sale.

Microsoft isn’t in talks with Salesforce, and no deal is going to be quick.  Microsoft  has said that it might compete for Salesforce if it was for sale.

Salesforce shares spiked and were immediately halted for volatility on the news

Salesforce offers a leading position in CRM, software, as well as cloud computing — the delivery of business software and services via the Internet.

Microsoft sells its own customer management software, but lags behind Salesforce.

Microsoft last week set a goal of increasing annual revenue from its commercial cloud business to about $20 billion.

Oracle Chief Executive Officer Safra Catz said  an acquisition of Salesforce would create disruption in the software market.

She declined to comment on whether Oracle was interested in buying Salesforce.

Salesforce was involved in strategic-alliance discussions with SAP last year and SAP has confirmed it is not thinking about a Salesforce bid.

SAP founder dies

Posted on April 1, 2015 by - Moving People, News

Klaus-TschiraThe bloke who created an empire based on really expensive management software, which no one was quite sure what it did, has died.

Klaus Tschira, one of the co-founders of European software giant SAP, has died unexpectedly at the age of 74, his foundation said.

Tschira,  a trained physicist, left IBM to found SAP in 1972 together with four IBM colleagues: Hasso Plattner, who is still the company’s chairman, Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector and Claus Wellenreuther.

SAP began by developing software that could process data in real time rather than overnight in batches, and went public in 1988.

It is now Europe’s biggest technology company, with revenues of $18.9 billion and had more than 74,000 employees in 2014.

He also founded the Klaus Tschira Foundation (KTF) in 1995 as a non-profit organisation to support projects in natural and computer sciences and mathematics.

Tschira, a billionaire, stepped down from SAP’s supervisory board in 2007. He is survived by his wife Gerda Tschira and two sons.

HP gathers legal Lynch Mob

Posted on April 1, 2015 by - News

The lynch-mob-21war of words between HP and the former owner of Autonomy, Michael Lynch has ended up in a court battle in the UK.

The maker of expensive printer ink has lodged a claim in London against Lynch and a former colleague for damages of about $5.1 billion over their management of Autonomy, the company it bought in 2011.

Lynch will counter sue, seeking $149 million for loss and damage caused by HP’s accusations.
Autonomy was supposed to be the $11.1 billion centrepiece of a move to becoming a more SAP style software organisation. But a year later HP wrote off three-quarters of the British company’s value, accusing Lynch and his colleagues of financial mismanagement.

HP filed a claim against Lynch, the co-founder of Autonomy, and Autonomy’s former finance director Sushovan Hussain in the Chancery Division of London’s High Court on Monday, alleging they engaged in fraudulent activities while executives at Autonomy.

“The lawsuit seeks damages from them of approximately $5.1 billion,” the spokeswoman added.
Lynch, speaking on behalf of Autonomy’s former management, has consistently denied any impropriety, saying the loss in value of the company was down to HP’s mismanagement.

HP’s case might have been weakened by the fact that Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction of Autonomy’s former executives.

Salesforce guns for SAP’s European crown

Posted on March 30, 2015 by - News

Salesforce logoSalesforce.com wants to overtake SAP in terms of sales on the German company’s home market in the coming years.

The outfit which has been making a killing on the cloud wants to get into SAP’s form of expensive esoteric business software line.

Salesforce’s Europe chief Joachim Schreiner told the German magazine Wirtschafts Woche that Salesforce wanted to become the biggest software company in Germany by sales.

He did not set a date for his conquest of Germany, but instead made it clear that Salesforce needed Lebensraum in the Fatherland.

Salesforce was growing at a rate of more than 30 percent per year in Europe, adding Germany was one of its strongest markets on the continent.

SAP last year generated sales of $19.2 billion, of which close to 2.6 billion were in Germany. Salesforce had revenues of $5.4 billion, of which close to $1 billion were in Europe. It does not break out figures for the German market.

 

SAP slashes jobs

Posted on March 6, 2015 by - News

sapbeerSoftware giant SAP said it will cut around three percent of its employees worldwide but added that it would create different jobs as it struggles to get up to speed on cloud computing.

The job cuts include SAP offering some employees early retirement, and won’t make forced redundancies in its European offices.

SAP has around 75,000 workers worldwide.

The company is struggling to compete with up to date cloud based companies including Workday and Salesforce and is working to beat the competition.

Reuters said that SAP will create new job opportunities in the cloud business, the database Hana and the expenses software Concur – it paid over $7 billion for Concur in 2014.

Microsoft reveals cloud roadmap

Posted on February 2, 2015 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeSoftware company Microsoft said it has introduced a web site that reveals details of its roadmap for its Cloud Platform.
Microsoft has been aiming to move to the cloud as fast as it can and now offers cloud services including Azure, Intone, Visual Studio and server platforms including Windows Server, SQL Server.  It also has covered system appliance offerings including Analytics and Stor System.
Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of the cloud and enterprise marketing group at Microsoft said the company wanted to be transparent about its cloud strategy.
He said that the web site, which you can find here, is intended to show what technology it’s developing and what’s coming in the next few months.
It also will include products in public preview.
Microsoft isn’t the only company struggling to re-invent itself as a cloud player.  Others in the game include SAP, Oracle and IBM.
Analysts predict that over the next few years the majority of enterprise IT users will use cloud computing and services more and more.

 

SAP wants its software on the cloud

Posted on January 26, 2015 by - News

cloud1SAP, the maker of expensive esoteric business software which no one really understand wants to deliver its product onto the cloud.

This means you can be completely baffled by the product, without having to store it on your local servers.

Luka Mucic told the Euro am Sonntag business weekly that contract cloud work becomes profitable over time and in the long term; they can definitely become more profitable than classic licence sales.

SAP said last week its push to deliver cloud-based products via the internet would “dampen profitability” until at least 2018, even if it attempts to blow dry its profitability with a hair-dryer or makes it stand in the sun for a few hours.

This is because unlike the packaged software SAP has been selling for decades, for which clients pay a immediate licence fee, cloud-based software is generally paid for by subscription over time, but most of the costs for the software provider are upfront.

Mucic said contracts were loss making for the first year of operation.

SAP agreed in September to buy cloud-based travel and expenses software maker Concur for $7.3 billion in cash, its biggest takeover ever, but about what you can expect to pay for a single SAP business consultant.

Mucic said SAP might add another, smaller tranche, perhaps as soon as the first half of this year, but added that otherwise the company had no need for further capital. He did not say why SAP needed the money.

SAP rejects Microsoft merger

Posted on December 8, 2014 by - News

sapbeerThe German outfit  which makes expensive esoteric business software and no-one really knows what it does, has decided that it will not allow itself to become part of the glorious Microsoft Empire.

Rumours were flying that SAP was to merge with Microsoft as both of them try to corner the business software market.

However it looks like the German software maker SAP will remain an independent company in the long term, its chief executive told a German newspaper.

Bill McDermott told weekly Euro am Sonntag that it would be best for the company to stay independent is to grow and to have a good market capitalisation.

With a market capitalisation of $86.6 billion, SAP is the fifth-largest company in Germany’s large cap DAX index.

Apparently, SAP had held talks about a potential merger with software giant Microsoft but discussions were scrapped because of the complexity of any deal and the subsequent integration of the companies. All this happened in 2004, so it appears that this rumour was a bit like us – rather elderly but for some reason will not go away.

 

Indian software market grows again

Posted on December 1, 2014 by - News

flaggThe accession to power by the “business friendly” BJP party in India has resulted in the software market starting to grow again.

That’s according to a report by market intelligence firm IDC, which said during the first half of this year, the market grew by 10.7 percent, compared to the first half of 2013.

IDC thinks the market will continue to grow in the next five years with a compound annual growth rate  (CAGR) of 10.5 percent.

Areas of growth include mobile application development and device management, security software, systems software and engineering applications.

Shweta Baidya, a senior market analyst at IDC, said that large and small to medium enterprises want to curb capital expenditure and move into the cloud.

Virtualisation and cloud players like Vmware, Salesforce and Red Hat generated good business, and database and analytics companies including Teradata, Oracle, Qlik and others saw double digit growth.

IDC provided a pie chart which shows market share in the region.

indiapie

SAP to stop buying companies

Posted on November 19, 2014 by - News

sapbeerAfter a spending spree that saw it spending over $7 billion software company Concur, German CRM giant appears to have decided enough is enough.

CEO Bill McDermott told a conference in Barcelona today that SAP is going to “step down” its acquisition efforts.

It had pledged to buy itself into a position of real power in the market, but according to a report by Reuters it was going to tuck itself into bed and that would probably put people to sleep.

SAP has seen some tough times in the recent past but McDermott believes it now has a business plan that will see it do reasonably well between 2015 and 2020.

SAP’s major competitors include Salesforce, Oracle and Workday and that market is becoming increasingly competitive.

McDermott’s strategy is to sell more of its products through the cloud, and that makes it just like every other vendor and therefore more vulnerable to competition too.