As leading tech heavyweights such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. begin experimenting with the blockchain technology, German software giant SAP has also expressed its intentions of studying the possible threats posed by the distributed ledger technology to the firm’ business.
SAP’s customers in banking, farming, energy, healthcare and media pay millions of dollars for enterprise-grade record-keeping software. The firm does not want to be adversely hit by the disruptive potential of the blockchain, and has asked its teams to get a handle on the e-ledgers quickly.
SAP’s chief innovation officer Juergen Mueller told Bloomberg,
If, as a large company, you just harvest existing customers and don’t look ahead, you’re on the wrong track. Just look at the Nokias or BlackBerrys of the world. If you don’t watch out, this new technology might hit you.
SAP expects blockchain to make commercial headway in the next 5 years, however, it has begun writing specialized software for its customers so that they can connect blockchains to its Hana Cloud Platform, which renders a database and applications as online services so customers can add new functions to their SAP systems.
Clearly, the software giant has no intentions of building its own infrastructure, but would rather provide the required interconnections so that the businesses utilizing the blockchain can seamlessly use the company’s platform.
In a report by the World Economic Forum last year, the blockchain technology was identified as one of the six computing mega-trends which will transform the society in the next decade. WEF estimates 10 percent of global GDP could be stored in blockchains by 2027.
