Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I spotlight why SAP’s AI and data strategy is changing the enterprise game.
Highlights
00:02 — We’ve got more changes to dig into here on the Cloud Wars Top 10, as we saw SAP soar up to number four. SAP had held the number five spot for a couple of years now, and moved up to number four. All those companies in the enterprise application space now have morphed into applications, agents, AI, and data companies, not just simple application companies anymore.
00:42 — So, in this fast-changing environment, SAP has really stood out by dramatically outgrowing its other very, very capable competitors. I call these four pieces of the SAP portfolio the Four Horsemen of Business Transformation. So, those include Business Suite, Business AI, the Business Data Cloud, and the Business Technology Platform.
01:40 — So, for SAP, its growth rate in its most recent quarter is 27%, and its cloud revenue is $6.14 billion. Microsoft came in second place with its Dynamics 365 enterprise apps, up 18%. SAP grew 50% faster. Workday, 14.6%, $2.24 billion. Oracle, overall apps were up 11%, $3.9 billion.
AI Agent & Copilot Summit is an AI-first event to define opportunities, impact, and outcomes with Microsoft Copilot and agents. Building on its 2025 success, the 2026 event takes place March 17-19 in San Diego. Get more details.
02:50 — So, healthcare lagging there for Oracle, and then Salesforce, the biggest at $10.3 billion, but grew 8.6%. SAP grew about three times faster, which is a 200% differential there. What’s interesting about this is business leaders looking to expand what they’re doing with enterprise applications, especially to help transform their businesses, to get into the AI economy.
03:45 — So, in a wide-open field with lots of choices, terrific competition, SAP stands out as the high-growth leader. Now, it’s a little clunky to say enterprise apps, AI, agentic, and data, so if anybody comes up with a real code name for this, let me know. We’ll see what happens there, and if you come up with a great name for it, you get a Cloud Wars beer mug.
