hybris and Acquia Partner to ‘Democratize’ Software Development

MUNICH & BOSTON – 30 June 2015 – Today hybris software, an SAP company, and Acquia, the digital experience company, announced a partnership to transform how companies improve the way they engage with today’s digital consumer. In a move away from legacy ‘software as a product’ and inflexible delivery models, hybris -- in collaboration with Acquia -- will launch new cloud-based microservices that will allow businesses to deliver digital experiences as easily as a smartphone user might download apps to a personal device. Together, Acquia and hybris make it possible for brands to deliver contextually relevant digital experiences via the cloud.

hybris introduces a new software delivery model -- a ‘platform for life’ based on a microservices approach that is delivered through hybris YaaS (hybris business platform as a service.) The new approach effectively democratises the enterprise software market, enabling independent developers to sell their solutions directly to organisations, alongside the established, major service providers on the market. Similar to the emergence of the Apple Store or Android’s Play Store, this approach stands to have a positive impact on the broader software market by promoting innovation and providing businesses with a greater degree of choice.

“This new approach to software development and distribution, as represented by the YaaS platform, is especially relevant today,” said Stefan Schmidt, Vice President of Commerce & Cloud Strategy, hybris and SAP Customer Engagement and Commerce. “Organisations are increasingly strategic about the technological functionality they build into their business and want to retain more control of the configuration of systems. By allowing organisations to retain this control, and by providing independent developers with an independent and open platform to distribute their solutions, it delivers a better way for businesses to manage software complexity, while simultaneously improving the quality and quantity of products available. In Acquia we’ve found a partner that has built its business on this philosophy while helping brands engage consumers more deeply through content, community and commerce.”

The YaaS platform is hybris’ stake in the ground, and a mark of its commitment to this new concept. Occupying the gap in the overlap between Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), YaaS offers the market a state-of-the-art microservice architecture upon which to develop an ecosystem of SaaS applications and services, thereby creating a marketplace that includes SAP, hybris, third party and competitor applications. The partnership between hybris and Acquia is significant as, for the first time, it brings together the sophisticated commerce capabilities of hybris with the Acquia Platform to deliver digital experiences that unify content, community, and commerce.

“Through our partnership, hybris and Acquia are together tackling the complex challenges of delivering digital experiences through an innovative cloud-first approach,” said Ray Grady, senior vice president of commerce solutions at Acquia. “Customer engagement today depends on a deep understanding of your audience and the ability to tailor touchpoints and content to meet their expectations. Software as a product, and even many SaaS approaches, have traditionally lacked the flexibility to do this, holding businesses back from delivering best-in-class digital experiences. We’re working with hybris to address this issue and deliver solutions that meet the needs of businesses and their customers.”

About hybris
hybris software, an SAP company, provides omni-channel customer engagement and commerce solutions that allow organizations to build up a contextual understanding of their customers in real-time, deliver a more impactful, relevant customer experience and sell more goods, services and digital content across every touch point, channel and device. Through its state-of-the-art customer data management, context driven marketing tools and unified commerce processes, hybris has helped some of the world’s leading organizations including 3M, ASICS, Bridgestone, EE, Galeries Lafayette, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss & Co, Nestlé, Nespresso, Nikon, Rexel, Samsung Electronics, Ted Baker, Tommy Bahama and W.W. Grainger, to attract, retain, and grow a profitable customer base. hybris Commerce Suite, hybris Marketing and hybris Billing sit right at the heart of SAP’s customer engagement and commerce (CEC) suite of solutions, alongside SAP® Cloud for Sales, SAP Cloud for Service and SAP CRM. These provide organizations with the foundation, framework and business tools to create a holistic customer view across channels, simplify customer engagement and solve complex business problems. For more information, visit www.hybris.com.

About Acquia
Acquia is the digital experience company. Intuit, Warner Music Group and Stanford University are among the more than 4,000 organizations that are transforming their digital businesses with Acquia’s open cloud platform. Global 2000 enterprises, government agencies and NGOs rely on Acquia to create new revenue streams, lower costs, and engage audiences more deeply through content, community, commerce and context.

For more information visit www.acquia.com or call +1 781 238 8600.

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