SAP'S FOURTH QUARTER 2009 EARNINGS CALL - TBR COMMENTARY - Sponsored Whitepaper

SAP seeks to drive revenue growth by building customer confidence: SAP seeks a return to being a trusted solution provider, a change from the currently tarnished image damaged by the awkward launch of Enterprise Support. SAP is driving a message of customer and market responsiveness as it prepares to renew growth following a difficult year of customer revolt and reduced applications spending. SAP’s Products, Services, GTM, R&D, and Ecosystem are aligning around the 2010 strategy to drive customer confidence in strategic application investments in applications.

Overall, TBR predicts revenue in 2010 will be €11.4 billion, an increase over the €10.7 billion earned in 2009, but not over the pre-recession revenue of €11.6 billion from 2008. SAP promises to be more flexible, responsive and accessible in order to renew revenue growth in 2010: Enterprise applications vendors participate one of the most volatile segments of the IT industry, making strong gains in good times and dramatic declines in recessions. SAP is the bellwether for applications vendors and it was hard hit in 2009. SAP software revenue declined nearly 28% in calendar ‘09 from ’08 as customers put their
applications investments on hold. The slowdown pulled down the rest of SAP’s business, as services dropped
20% and total revenue declined 8% year over year. SAP has a few options to restart revenue growth and the
company is pursuing all of them, though some have already raised customer ire.