Microsoft announced yesterday that they have agreed to extend their partnership with SAP to improve big data, cloud computing and enterprise mobility. The partnership will enable SAP applications to be available on Microsoft Azure as well as Excel being connected to SAP BusinessObjects.

“For our customers, SAP and Microsoft are among the top strategic vendors relied upon to drive their business’ success,” Steve Lucas, president of platform solutions at SAP, said in a statement. “We are proud of how we listened to our customers and together developed—and will continue to develop—innovative new programs focused on the cloud, mobility, analytics and interoperability that we expect will provide unparalleled value for our customers.”

SAP will bring a range of their enterprise software – including SAP Business Suite, Business All-In-One solutions, Mobile Platform, Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP ASE), and the developer edition of SAP HANA platform – to Microsoft’s Azure cloud environment. Additionally, the two vendors will also jointly develop and market SAP mobile apps for Microsoft and Windows Phone 8.1. According to one report, “Customers will be able to manage and secure the apps via SAP’s Mobile Secure offerings or Window’s Intune solution.” SAP and Microsoft will showcase their apps at SAP’s Sappshire Now 2014 event, which takes place on June 3 in Orlando, Florida.

The mobile apps will be priced and available through the Windows Store, Windows Phone Store, SAP Store and directly from SAP sales.

The two companies have been in partnership for 20 years, and it is believed that the two vendors serve 75 percent of enterprise businesses jointly. The recent announcement of their extended partnership is a sure sign of Microsoft and SAP’s long-standing strategy to make more users adopt cloud computing.

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