German business software maker SAP, having just announced the acquisition of web-based software maker Ariba for US$4.5 billion, is eyeing smartphone-based software and cloud computing in Indian and Asian markets to drive growth. “Our mobile software shares SAP infrastructure on smart phones across different platforms like iOS, Android and RIM, giving customers absolute freedom on which platform to use,” Stephen Watts, president, SAP, Asia-Pacific Japan, told HT. “The share of mobility has gone from nil to around 8-10% in our revenues in Asia in just five quarters, and there is a massive opportunity here on.”

The company is also expecting returns from cloud computing, which involves renting of software hosted on remote servers, to touch US€1 billion by 2015. A significant chunk of that would come from Asia, in particular China and India. “We expect that 20% of our revenue would come from cloud infrastructure by 2015,” said Watts. At present, 60-70% of the company’s global annual revenues of around € 14.2 bn (2011) comes from software. 

Source: Hindustan Times