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SAP STARTS VENTURE FUND

This is one of those items that doesn’t have immediate implications for the mid-market, but may well down the line. The company has anted up $350 million for SAP Ventures Fund 1 to be invested in software and software-enabled service companies. Although SAP has been doing this kind of thing for several years, it said the new fund structure would allow it to move more quickly.

I put this in the same category as SAP’s vow that it will be open in its development of the wireless infrastructure it acquired with the purchase of Sybase. SAP is out to do more than simply market applications. It wants to set up its own product and services platform and go directly at Microsoft on all fronts. What better way to do that than fund the vision. There were some holes in the announcement, especially in the fact the only place the amount in the fund got mentioned was in the headline on a news item. There’s nothing to compares the amount of capital available previously. So it could be well-polished mirrors and scented smoke for all I know. But I tend to rely on my sense of SAP’s ambition as meaning whatever the window dressing, there’s a lot of meat here. The company also is picturing itself as an innovator and environmentally friendly by inaugurating a test of an electrically powered car fleet in Germany. Whether this all works are not, they are really making this interesting at all levels.

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