European standards are needed, snabe stressed. "The risk is that each country now implements its own cloud environment."
At the EU level, an amendment to the data protection directive is currently being discussed; according to the original plan, it will be voted on in the EU parliament before the end of 2014. However, the timetable is already behind schedule. And in view of the current discussion surrounding the prism surveillance program, new uncertainties are emerging.
It’s also about protecting intellectual property, warned DSAG chairman marco lenck in nurnberg. The question is to what extent company data is protected from government access, even at SAP. "The nsa affair leads many to ask: will the data stay in europe?" said snabe. This is an opportunity for europe.
However, national regulations will make data traffic between countries more difficult and hinder the business model of companies like SAP. The software provider is moving more and more of its customers’ programs to data centers. SAP aims to double cloud revenue to two billion euros by 2015.
But SAP operates only two data centers for its european customers – one in st.Leon-red near walldorf and one in amsterdam. His preference was for a cloud framework for all of europe that defined standards and certificates, snabe said.
German customers in particular have reacted skeptically to the idea of outsourcing important software applications and data in the past because of potential security and data protection issues. The providers argue, among other things, with lower costs. Total costs were reduced by 30 percent in a transition, snabe said. "The customer saves the expense of its own data center."
SAP is also trying to make it easier for customers to transition to cloud offerings, for example by making it easier to terminate old maintenance contracts. In fact, the proportion of german SAP customers using cloud offerings is now increasing significantly. According to a recent DSAG survey, 40 percent of companies have now moved programs to external servers, compared to 25 percent at the beginning of the year.