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I had a chance to interview two partners participating in the "SAP PartnerEdge program for Application Development" and asked them about their business and opinion about in this program. Njal Stabell is CTO at Neptune Software and Benhard Supanz is CEO at Supanz.

   Bernhard Supanz                           Njal Stabell

   Njal, can you shortly describe Neptune Software’s activities?


Njal: Neptune Software is based in Oslo, Norway. We provide the most cost efficient and secure way to make any SAP functionality seamlessly available in user friendly interfaces on Phone, Tablet and Desktop. Being the only solution on the market that directly leverages SAP’s own source code ABAP, we maximize the use of the customer’s existing SAP set-up, while minimizing the need for integration. We call this solution the Neptune Application Designer (NAD).

   What made you decide to become a partner in the "SAP PartnerEdge program for Application Development"?

Njal: It is a low-cost program that offers en impressive set of benefits. It provides us with access to the strategic SAP technology platforms (Mobile, SAP HANA, SAP HANA Cloud etc), each with 25 developer licenses, which helps us to create applications. We can also certify the applications and publish them on the SAP Store. Currently we have seven applications live on the SAP Store, including NAD.

   Bernhard, what can you tell us about Supanz?

Bernhard: We were founded in 2008  and are Austria-based. We, and our customers too, see us as experts for SAP data integration and SAP interface development. Our business software, the BS-S Interaction Framework Program Generator, and the SAP software certification and certified developers are key for our strategy in the international market. We currently have two products on the SAP Store.

   Bernhard, when did you first seriously consider joining the "SAP PartnerEdge program for Application Development"?

That must have been at the end of July.

   In July? But you have published an application in the framework of the program end of August – how was that possible within one month?

Bernhard: several positive factors came together. First, the expertise within our company guaranteed that we already had a clear understanding of what an application for our customers should look like: one single application for all departments, merging all SAP standard- and all customer-specific developed reports, lists and tables. Second, we had experience with the Neptune Application Designer, which allows us as a company to quickly build highly valuable business applications without having to get into the ins-and-outs of ABAP coding. And last but not least, the "SAP PartnerEdge program for Application Development" not only provides the benefits as Njal mentioned before, but the contracting and onboarding process is very fast. We signed up within a few days, created the application with the help of NAD within 2 weeks, and had the application reviewed on the SAP Mobile Platform and published on the SAP Store within two more weeks.

Njal: For us it took a bit longer from signing up to getting the apps live – but we had more applications and were early adopters of the program. It is great to see partners like Supanz now completing the entire process in a matter of weeks.

   Njal, what more can you tell us about the importance of the Neptune’s ecosystem?

Njal: We have quite an extensive ecosystem, consisting of partners around the world that build apps using NAD. These partners are crucial for the success of our company as they do the actual implementation for the end customer. Now that they can combine their partnership with us together with the SAP PartnerEdge program for Application Development, they have a new global marketing channel through the SAP Store. Since most of Neptune Partner apps are based on the SAPUI5 framework, customers can now pick and choose applications from different partners and also combine these with standard Fiori applications.

   How do you see Supanz benefit from SAP’s overall strategy? Do you for instance see opportunities with SAP HANA and Cloud?


Bernhard: SAP HANA has very high value for Supanz in the acceleration during the execution of database queries. Latest actual data are very essential for users in decision-making and analysis. Through the architecture of mobile applications and web services, this data can be combined with a variety of options that support through mobile devices and Cloud scenarios in real time.

Njal: Neptune is also looking at SAP HANA and SAP HANA Cloud with the soon to be released Mobile Services (HCPMS). We see great potential in these areas. As an example, one of our customers recently ported their ECC system to HANA. The performance boost for the Neptune apps was significant. Even without changing the underlying backend code the data access time was close to zero. Combining that with the very fast UI5 framework that Neptune Apps employ, it provides incredible user experience and the apps feel extremely snappy.


  Bernhard, Njal, many thanks for this interview. Naturally I am pleased to see that the partner program has provided you with very speedy support in onboarding and getting SAP Mobile Platform-based applications onto the SAP Store. Lots of success for the future!