Sep 26: ERP Architectures with SUSE
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Anyone analyzing developments in the global ERP landscape in 2026 will find themselves facing a heated and contentious situation. The U.S. government’s latest export controls—such as the ban on Anthropic’s advanced foundational cognitive models for foreign markets—have sent shockwaves through the industry, revealing just how vulnerable the European continent’s digital economy has become. At the same time, the Walldorf-based software giant SAP is relentlessly driving its existing customers into dependence on the major American hyperscaler clouds as part of aggressive sales initiatives such as “Rise with SAP.”.
Anyone who naively embarks on this forced path of transformation runs the risk of completely losing not only control over their financial budget but also their fundamental digital sovereignty. Without a viable and legally sound exit option (cloud exit and AI exit strategy), the ERP system—the nerve center of existing SAP customers—risks becoming a victim of foreign legislation and unpredictable cost models.
In this complex landscape marked by uncertainty, one player is moving to the center of strategic considerations for existing SAP customers—a player that in the past often acted as a reliable but quiet foundation in the background: SUSE. Founded in Nuremberg, this European open-source pioneer embodies, now more than ever, the technical antithesis to proprietary vendor lock-in. With an estimated market share of 80 to 90 percent in the SAP HANA in-memory database sector, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications is the undisputed lifeline of the global SAP community.
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