By Ursula Quass
German software company SAP AG (SAP) sees huge business
potential from its takeover of U.S. information services provider
Ariba Inc. (ARBA) and seeks to double the number of Ariba customers
by 2015, the company told the Wall Street Journal in an interview
Monday.
"With 730,000 trading partners out there and SAP's reach--I
think we can double [the number of Ariba customers] until 2015,"
said Co-Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott.
At the end of last week, U.S. authorities approved the Ariba
takeover, which should help SAP reach its goal of increasing cloud
business revenue to 2 billion euros ($2.57 billion) and the number
of SAP users to 1 billion by 2015, Mr. McDermott said.
The combined revenue of all 200,000 SAP customers and 730,000
Ariba customers is around EUR8 trillion, Mr. McDermott said.
Approximately $350 billion in trade is conducted each year using
the Ariba platform, a volume which Mr. McDermott hopes to increase
using SAP and Ariba's integrated customer network.
Ariba provides customers, including notable companies such as
UPS, British Airways and Clariant, with a platform for contacting
trade partners independent of hardware.
Write to Ursula Quass at ursula.quass@dowjones.com
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