SAP HANA appliance software goes on general availability

The company also announced that manufacturing giant Mitsui has selected SAP HANA – joining Hilti, Medtronic and others, and claims that the customer pipeline for the new system is one of fastest growing in SAP's history. SAP executive board member Dr Vishal Sikka says the appliance introduces "a new paradigm" of real real-time computing, allowing companies to re-think their existing business approaches and difficulties. Sikka cites one customer using SAP HANA to run real-time simulations that help managers to understand profitability and improve margins per project, using granular revenue and cost data. Another unnamed customer that provides IT services for transportation firms is using SAP HANA to search through 360 million traffic records "in a little over one second", allowing taxi companies to direct and despatch cabs more efficiently and in real time. Sikka also says that some customers are using SAP HANA to pull both SAP and non-SAP data, without interrupting their existing IT systems. "General availability is a major milestone for SAP HANA, but this is just the beginning," states Sikka. "SAP HANA brings a fundamental transformation to the way companies run their businesses, and is at the heart of innovation across our entire product and technology portfolio at SAP," he adds. First mooted last spring, SAP HANA was delivered to beta customers in November 2010 before today's launch.