Years ago, it was predicted that the industry would move rapidly to the cloud — and move it did at a pace that exceeded everyone’s expectations. With customers now used to the cloud-based world, they increasingly expect seamless solutions. That seamlessness, according to Tom Roberts, global VP of 3rd-Party Solutions at SAP SE, relies on integration.

Roberts said customers basically swing the pendulum to whichever model requires the fewest buttons to be pushed. He explained to Peter Burris (@plburris), cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, “Best of breed became the suite, and then we had the era of the cloud. And, if you noticed, when the cloud companies were launched, they were best-of-breed companies.”

“And now,” Roberts concluded, “we’re in that period where people want things to move back to the suite, because they want integration.”

He said 3rd-Party Solutions is about having stopgaps and remedies at the ready so customers don’t have to wander outside their environments.

IoT: Internet of Time

Roberts said if there is any area of IT where time is of the essence, it’s Internet of Things, and he added that seamlessness, again, is the crucial element. He spoke about companies with employees out in the field using IoT tools and instruments to make snap decisions — sometimes saving lives.

“HANA is made for real time,” he stated. “And if you’re going to do IoT, that’s the only platform you can really go with. It’s not the old batch and then analyse later. You need that information happening in real time.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of SAP Sapphire 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE