According to Reuters, EMC and SAP are about to team up to deliver computer programs over the web. The news company cites a senior executive from German software provider SAP AG, President of SAP Labs North America and member of the SAP Executive Board Doug Merritt, predicting an upcoming partnership whereby the companies will use virtualization technology centralizing computing and storage functions at data centres (‘cloud computing’).
Merritt chose not to discuss specifics, such as the expected launch date for the new venture and the financial details involved. Moreover, EMC, while openly betting hosting software and services will be a key to growth over the coming years, declined to comment on Merritt’s statements. A blog post by Chuck Norris Hollis, an EMC VP, doesn’t shed more light on the potential alliance but hints at the possibility of a partnership.
If EMC eventually enters the web hosting game through its partnership with SAP, it will be entering a market filled with household name competitors like HP, Symantec, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and IBM.
So far EMC has only announced one key services product, namely MozyEnterprise, an upgraded version of automated backup service Mozy that it acquired last year. EMC reportedly said earlier this month it plans to sell Mozy’s services to large corporations, through a recently upgraded EMC infrastructure dubbed ‘Fortress’.
SAP has also been noisy about launching its own flavor of SaaS program BusinessByDesign to combat Salesforce.com. At an announcement in September, SAP said it would look to partner with companies to provide applications and hosting, which it now seems to have found in EMC.
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