SAP slugs it out with software contenders (Java Training Courses - thenational)

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The sector's top two heavyweights, SAP and Oracle, have been particularly aggressive as they try to build up software specialities to help businesses track and analyse data.

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In 2010, SAP acquired a business called Sybase for US$5.8 billion (Dh21.3bn) to help it better reach into the mobile software space. It followed that last year with a $3.4bn deal for SuccessFactors, which helps human resource units.

Then Oracle struck back with a $1.9bn agreement in February to acquire Taleo, another human resources management software company. For $1.5bn, it has also swallowed RightNow, which specialises in providing cloud-based services for managing customer service.

But SAP is also looking to expand its cloud-based services to help companies save, access and analyse data remotely instead of physically on just one computer. Last month, it announced a $4.3bn agreement to acquire Ariba, which helps businesses connect with other businesses for products and services.

"The way we compete with [SAP], and we do that across the world, is, obviously, we try to play to our strength," says Thomas Popp-Madsen, who heads Oracle's enterprise performance management for the Middle East and Africa.

But then, software providers are not just fighting each other for new business. Those behind pirated programmes are also eating away at potential revenue. "I can't comment on other software industry rivals but for Adobe, the main rival is software piracy," says Naser Samaenah, the licence compliance manager in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) for Adobe Systems, a software seller.

Despite this problem, global revenues from business analytic and performance software topped $12.2bn last year, a 16 per cent increase from the year before, according to data from Gartner, a market research firm.

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