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SAP kauft SuccessFactors für 3,4 Mrd Dollar

SAP, Europe’s largest software company by sales, is to buy SuccessFactors, the provider of cloud-based human resource management software, for $3.4bn in cash, in an effort to make itself a “cloud powerhouse”.

The deal will help boost SAP’s ability to offer software to companies as a service over the internet, something which the German company has been previously criticised for lacking.

SuccessFactors provides software that helps companies manage their workforce, hosted in remote data centres or “the cloud”. With 15m subscriptions at more than 3500 companies worldwide, it is believed to be the second largest cloud-based provider of enterprise software after Salesforce.com.

SAP’s own cloud-based offering, Business by Design, took longer-than-expected to develop and has seen relatively slow uptake among customers. “The cloud is a core of SAP’s future growth and the combination of SuccessFactors’ leadership team and technology with SAP will create a cloud powerhouse,” said Bill McDermott.

Financial Times, December 3, 2011  By Maija Palmer