While there is broad-based recognition that the ‘Cloud’ is fundamentally impacting how computing power and business applications are delivered and consumed, it is now becoming clear to a growing number of enlightened corporate decision-makers that today’s rapidly evolving Cloud capabilities can also significantly improve their business intelligence (BI) and analytics capabilities as well.

SAP’s planned acquisition of Ariba is not only the latest bold move by the software vendor to become a major player in the burgeoning Cloud marketplace, it is also an important market indicator of the next wave of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in the supply-chain arena.