itelligence Addstore for SAP HAN customers launched
itelligence Addstore for SAP HAN customers launched

itelligence has released the itelligence Addstore  for hybris software. It will deliver a web-based presence for customers in North America and the rest of the world.

The itelligence Addstore is designed to help itelligence customers get easier access to itelligence solutions for their SAP environments. It will be backed by its own dedicated support team who will be responsible for setting up demonstration of the solutions.

itelligence are part of the NTT Data Group and supply SAP consulting, software, hosting and application management for their customers.

An interesting approach for any small software and consultancy

This launch should interest a number of companies not just itelligence customers. What is happening here is that itelligence has gone back through the various custom solutions it has developed for customers over several years and turned them into general solutions that it can sell. This is something that very few consultancies and software houses have yet done despite the cloud providing them with a platform where they can reach a wider audience.

There are several challenges for companies looking to do this. Among those challenges are:

  • Standardising their solutions so that they can be deployed across any customer installation.
  • The development of high quality documentation
  • The need to check patent databases to ensure that the code used has not been patented by other vendors
Johann Heydenrych, SVP Solutions, itelligence
Johann Heydenrych, SVP Solutions, itelligence

According to a quote from Johann Heydenrych, SVP Solutions, itelligence in the press release: “The itelligence Addstore provides our clients a digitized, enhanced user interface to experience the breadth of our product offerings and enhance their overall SAP solution.

“As an SAP service provider and partner, itelligence considers it especially important to adopt SAP technology as our web-platform. hybris, an SAP company, will support itelligence domestically and internationally. Moving forward, all current and future releases of our proprietary items, partner products and rapid-deployment packages will be available on our U.S. Addstore site for the benefit of our customers.”

All about growing the business

In the recent release of its Q3 2015 financial results, itelligence announced that revenues were up 29.5% to €497 million from €383.7 million in Q3 2014. A large part of this was due to organic growth from the business which represented 18.7%. The remainder was from its recent acquisitions who delivered the remaining 10.8% of growth.

By releasing the itelligence Addstore the company will no doubt hope to speed up that growth to help underpin its strength in the SAP HANA market. What it hasn’t announced is whether it intends to offer any of the solutions through other peoples app stores.

Customers who create an Addstore account will also be given a free two-month trial of it.password manager which runs on the SAP HAMA Cloud Platform. This allows users to request password resets irrespective of whether they are using on-premises or mobile devices.

ISVs and consultancies have a lot of locked in IP

For many large companies such as IBM, HP and Microsoft this is an area where they have failed to really help their ISV base evolve. They have the skills to help their ISV base reduce custom solutions to general products and the legal and commercial skills to help them productise their solutions. From a cloud perspective this helps vendors quickly build out an app store that will attract customers.

Cloud is exactly what itelligence is looking at. It already offers it own cloud solutions for SAP HANA users. This move means that it also has a wider app store to leverage its intellectual property developed over years. What will take time is for it to go through the various custom solutions from those companies it has been acquiring over the last few years and do the same with that code.

A busy few months for itelligence

Over the last few month itelligence has made a number of important announcements. One of these is a deal with Hitachi Data Systems  for the two companies lo launch a fully integrated and scalable solution for SAP HANA.

itelligence has also extended its relationship with ArcelorMittal SA. It has signed a global managed services agreement with ArcelorMittal SA who have signed up to the itelligence Provider Cloud.

In the UK itelligence has announced the opening of a new regional office in Birmingham. This follows on from its recent acquisition of IT Performs.

Conclusion

Spending the time cleaning up custom solutions to develop an app store to sell solutions to a wider audience is a smart move by itelligence. It allows them to monetise their existing investment in software and solutions development.

It will be interesting to see the Q4 2015 results to how quickly this adds to the bottom line. If it is to be successful it should begin to have an impact very quickly. Success for itelligence in the SAP space should also spark the interest of other consultancies and ISVs.

How quickly they will be able to react without investment from large software partners is difficult to tell. However the opportunity to have their own app store to showcase their skills and solutions will be very attractive to them.

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