Google's parent company Alphabet has announced that it plans to move its internal financial operations from Oracle to SAP. The news came on the same day the Supreme Court gave the final verdict in a decade-long court battle between Oracle and Google, which saw Google come out in the end as the victor.
In the long-running software copyright dispute related to the Java programming language, Oracle was seeking a $9 billion pay-day. The 10-year legal fight might be over, but Google and Oracle are still competitive in the cloud computing enterprise market, particularly in hybrid and multi-cloud services, as well as migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud.
According to CNBC, Alphabet and Google's core financial systems will move to SAP in May. Alphabet’s adoption of SAP applications marks a victory for SAP, a long-time bitter rival with Oracle in the market for enterprise applications. Notably, the shift only relates to software Google uses to track finances, and there’s no current indication that the company will move its other systems off Oracle.
An SAP spokesperson confirmed that “Alphabet is running SAP S/4HANA on Google Cloud to support its finance teams, and we’re excited to continue expanding our work with them.”
Oracle, Co-Founder and CTO Larry Ellison has been quite the vocal rival to SAP. Recently, he’s pointed out the number of large customers moving from SAP to Oracle cloud applications. During Oracle's Q3 conference call, Ellison listed dozens of companies and government agencies that have moved from SAP ERP to Fusion ERP.
In 2019, Amazon Web Services, which also competes with Oracle in cloud computing, shut down its internal use of Oracle’s database software. In late 2018, AWS CEO Andy Jassy even taunted Ellison in a tweet when AWS shut off its Oracle-based data warehouse system.
The switch further solidifies SAP’s role as a competitor in this space as these companies continue to vie for the top spot in the in the hypercompetitive cloud market.
