Mannheim - Europe's largest software firm, SAP, will continue its acquisition strategy despite a multi-million dollar savings programme, joint chief executive Leo Apotheker told the company's shareholder meeting Tuesday. "Such investments are of huge importance, especially in difficult times, because we can now lay the foundation for future growth," Apotheker said in Mannheim.
This year, SAP has taken over US software provider Clear Standards and French software developer Highdeal.
"2009 is an unusually difficult year," Apotheker said. Because there was no clear improvement of the economic situation, the company could not reliably estimate its turnover for the year, he added.
For the first time in its history, SAP is cutting jobs, aiming to reduce its staff by 3,000, across the corporation, which would bring the software manufacturer down to 48,500 staff. To date 2,200 positions have been cut.
Joint chiefs Apotheker and Henning Kagermann, who is due to retire at the end of May, told shareholders this step was necessary to survive the crisis.
Nevertheless Apotheker said the company was still on track to introduce its small business software programme. "Business by Design will come," he said, adding that details would be announced at the end of the year.
The SAP chief said so far they had 80 clients for the new product. The software producer had initially anticipated bringing on board 10,000 new customers with the system by the year 2010.
The Walldorf based company experienced a 16-per-cent drop in Q1 profits, to 204 million euros (275 million dollars). Results before tax and interest had shrunk by 8 per cent, to 332 million euros, while software sales revenue fell by a third to 418 million euros.
