SAP to bundle analytic apps with Sybase IQ database

SAP on Monday announced a new family of products that marry its Business Objects BI (business intelligence) software with the Sybase IQ analytic database and include specialised business content for use by various industries.

The four offerings include BI suite, analytics edition; BI platform, analytics edition; Edge analytics edition; and Crystal Server, analytics edition. The latter two are mostly aimed at small and medium-size companies.

Along with IQ, the bundles also include SAP Data Integrator for bringing information into the system. In both cases, customers get a runtime-only license, restricting IQ and Data Integrator's use to the analytic applications in the bundle.

Overall, however, SAP has come up with "very attractive" pricing for the four editions, with a roughly 20 percent "uplift" for IQ and data integrator added to the base price of the analytics software. said Paul Clark, senior director of analytics marketing. Specific figures weren't available.

IQ is typically licensed on a per-core basis, said Tom Traubitz, director of solution marketing. While the runtime license has no restrictions on data storage or the number of users, customers of the two lower-end packages are limited to 16 cores, while the two higher-end options include 32 cores, he said.

The downloadable business content is also included in the packages' cost and it will "help customers get a jump-start" using the software, according to Clark.

"The way it works is we look at a business use case, based on a particular function in particular industry," such as staff management in health care, Clark said. Then SAP creates content, such as reports and dashboards, to fit the scenario, he added.

While the analytics packages being sold for on-premises use, SAP partners will probably offer hosted versions, according to Clark.

From a strategic standpoint, the new bundles suggest that SAP remains committed to IQ, which was gained through the 2010 acquisition of Sybase, even as its homegrown HANA in-memory database becomes the company's focal point for both analytic and transaction processing workloads.

They also give risk-averse customers an avenue for tackling more complex data analysis jobs, rather than adopt HANA, which is still a fairly new product.