SAP, Ericsson Partner on Mobile Documents, Enterprise M2M Platform: MWC

SAP launched a Mobile Documents application and is partnering with Ericsson to offer further machine-to-machine solutions.

BARCELONA, Spain — Software developer SAP made two announcements at the Mobile World Congress here about secure enterprise file sharing and enterprise machine-to-machine solutions—the Mobile Documents application and a partnership with Ericsson to jointly market and sell cloud-based, M2M solutions and services to enterprises through operators around the globe.

The Mobile Documents app is similar to consumer applications on the market today but with more robust controls for enterprise IT departments. The platform offers a mobility management system covering physical devices, the apps they run, and the content they access and store.

The mobile content management solution aims to help increase user productivity by providing a single entry point to personal business documents and corporate content through any mobile device. SAP Mobile Documents is a stand-alone software solution, and when combined with the Afaria mobile device management solution, will provide an enterprise mobility management (EMM) platform for securing mobile devices, apps and content.

"Our customers require a broad, easy-to-integrate enterprise mobility management platform for mobile security that covers everything from mobile-device and application management, to mobile content management, and eventually the Internet of Things," Sanjay Poonen, SAP's global solutions president, said in a statement. "The release of SAP Mobile Documents and our support for third-party mobile content tools will help connect the vast amounts of content and data driven from millions of business-class devices and mobile apps via the cloud."

The joint SAP and Ericsson solutions will be based on a combined software as a service (SaaS) offering within M2M, combining Ericsson's services, solutions, technology and network operator infrastructure and enterprise business solutions from SAP powered by the SAP HANA platform. The solutions are designed to help enhance enterprise efficiency in business processes such as maintenance, remote service, inventory, logistics and road transport management, vending and customer experience management. For example, an enterprise needing a smart vending machine solution—including M2M connectivity, applications and cloud services—would be able to sign up for the SAP and Ericsson offerings as a service through a mobile operator leveraging the deal.

In addition to solutions and technology, Ericsson will lend its consulting, systems integration and managed services, and complementary device and applications testing, as well as verification services to facilitate a faster time-to-market, efficient use of mobile network resources and an optimized user experience.

"By accessing services and controlling devices with solutions leveraging Ericsson experience from the communications industry and SAP from the enterprise segment, businesses will find better and more innovative ways to respond to customer needs more quickly," Ericsson President and CEO Hans Vestberg said in a statement. "Building an ecosystem also allows our operator customers a new way to address new markets and enterprise needs."