SAP Seeks To Double Ariba Customers By 2015 With Purchase -CEO

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.

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