SAP Offers New Mobile Apps Partner Program

SAP has kicked off a new partner program for mobile software developers to engage on the vendor’s mobile platform, in particular those building business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile applications.

The Mobile Apps Partner program offers developers looking to make a business out of packaged mobile apps a series of tools, resources, benefits and a sales outlet through the SAP Store. Perks include a free development license through Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Web Services, and a no-cost 30-day trial to evaluate SAP’s mobile platform and its ERP applications to help with development.

“We recognize that this presents valuable opportunity for the millions of mobile developers looking for ways to monetize and scale,” said Sanjay Poonen, SAP president, Mobile Division. “For that reason, SAP has created an end-to-end support system that helps ensure that mobile developers around the world have easy access to SAP resources.”

The program also includes hosted sandboxes, access to SAP’s developer community for collaboration and SAP mobile app certification.

Above Border, an Alberta, Canada-based developer that is a new member of the Mobile Apps Partner program and whose smartphone app automatically records the number of days an employee spends in a specific geographic jurisdiction to simplify and enhance compliance reporting requirements, praised the sales leads that resulted from placement on the SAP Store.

“Early results already show leads that were generated for Above Border directly as a result of placement on the SAP Store,” said Stephen Kenney, Above Border’s chief executive. “We are confident that having our mobile apps on the SAP Store will continue to be very beneficial in terms of business impact to our top and bottom line.”

SAP recently indicated that it will allow authorized channel partners to sell its BusinessObjects business intelligence software to SMBs and added two distributors to its PartnerEdge program to support the initiative.