SAP’s cloud transition hindered by executive departures
Judging by its fourth quarter and full year earnings results, SAP’s plans to substitute revenue from clunky enterprise software with data-driven applications and cloud services are coming along nicely. HANA remained the German business intelligence giant’s fastest growing product despite being hit by currency swings, while cloud subscription rose 39 percent over the last three months to approximately $287 million.
This encouraging growth is contrasted by the recent departure of Bob Calderoni, the company’s former top cloud executive. He came on board as part of SAP’s 2012 acquisition of Ariba, where he served as chairman and CEO since 2001, and took over the company’s hosted solutions portfolio after Lars Dalgaard, who joined from SuccessFactors, resigned to become a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He will be replaced by Shawn Price, the current president of the cloud-based HR solutions provider.
Calderoni will continue to serve as a strategic advisor to the SAP board, but his righthand man, former Ariba president Kevin Costello, is leaving the company.
“After successfully leading the transition of Ariba into SAP, Bob Calderoni has taken the decision to leave SAP,” the company says in a statement. “We have benefitted greatly from Bob’s vision in building SAP’s leadership in the cloud, and we are grateful that Bob will remain as a strategic advisor to the Managing Board. We thank him for his efforts and wish him well in his endeavors.”
Calderoni and Costello’s departure adds insult to injury for SAP, which has lost three of its senior executives to BlackBerry since December. The struggling phone maker, led by former Sybase chief John Chen, is filling the gaps in its leadership team as a part of a bold turnaround plan focusing on the enterprise.
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