SAP offering customers 'simpler' way to buy its Hana in-memory platform

While the new Simpler Choice campaign also includes perks for customers who adopt SAPSAP's Adaptive Server and IQ databases, SAP is placing the most emphasis on getting companies onto Hana, a technology that sits at the center of its new product development efforts both for on-premises software and the cloud. Alles zu SAP auf CIO.de

Simpler Choice's features include services aimed at determining how much money customers could save by moving to Hana from other database platforms; services for evaluating whether moving applications to SAP's Hana Enterprise Cloud makes sense; and trial versions of Hana for both cloud and on-premises deployments.

SAP has also simplified its licensing terms to allow for "mix and match" data management product scenarios, although more details of this weren't immediately available.

In addition, SAP will give customers credit for previous database purchases when they buy Hana licenses, and waive maintenance fees during the first year as they migrate over, according to a statement on its website.

There are now more than 4,100 Hana customers and more than 1,450 customers for SAP's Business Suite on Hana product, SAP said Monday during its third-quarter earnings announcement. In addition, more than 1,600 startups are using Hana to build applications, SAP said.