SAP pries open China cloud

Using a two-year-old partnership with China Telecom, German software provider SAP is aiming to penetrate cloud services in the Asian country. The firm said Wednesday it aimed to become an important player in the sector in China in the years ahead.

SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott stressed at a consumer fair in Beijing the move dovetailed with the company's strategy to make products for China in the country itself.

"I'm firmly convinced that Chinese enterprises will be willing to make use of cloud-based solution faster as a result of this strategic bilateral partnership," China Telecom President Yang Jie said in a statement.

Trust a major issue

Foreign firms had so far only been able to offer cloud-based services in China, if their servers were not located in the Asian country. But the scandal surrounding NSA spaying activities had made Chinese companies increasingly wary of foreign IT providers.

By using China Telecom's own server capacity, SAP was expected to get off to a good start, with local firms expected to place much more trust in the cloud services offered that way.

SAP said it banked on rapid growth in the sector in China in the years ahead. SAP China chief Alex Atzberger noted cloud-based services were still in their infancy there. "But the market is about to take off, and we want to be the first to participate in the rally," he said.

SAP said it aimed to raise its China revenues to one billion euros ($1.35 billion) by 2015, trying to get the edge over rivals Oracle and IBM.

hg/msh (dpa, Reuters)