SAP looking to buy big cloud companies

[FRANKFURT] German business software maker SAP could start looking at large acquisition targets again, particularly among cloud computing firms, its chief financial officer Werner Brandt was quoted as saying by weekly Euro am Sonntag. "We could look at almost any size," he was quoted as saying. Mr Brandt, who will retire in May, declined to name any potential targets.

SAP last week pushed back its profit target by two years as it waits for subscription revenue from cloud computing to gather pace and invests more in the business to keep up with a fast-growing market.

Cloud computing helps businesses cut costs by ditching bulky servers for network-based software in their own offices, instead using remote data centres run by technology companies. IBM Markets Intelligence says the cloud computing market could be as big as US$200 billion by 2020.