Google Cloud partner deal with DXC targets SAP migration
A new alliance uniting IT services firm DXC Technology with Google will focus on artificial intelligence and SAP migration as opportunities for collaboration.
DXC Technology will resell Google Cloud Platform under a new partnership that will look to cash in on the enterprise migration of SAP applications to public clouds.
The alliance marks the formalization of the companies' previous collaboration and expands DXC's roster of strategic partners in the public cloud. DXC, an IT services company based in Tysons, Va., launched a global Microsoft Azure digital transformation practice in July and a year ago unveiled a DXC-AWS integrated practice. DXC also works with Oracle and VMware in the cloud space.
Such partnering arrangements are becoming more commonplace, as consulting firms and managed service providers gear up to deal with customers building multi-cloud environments. Accenture, for example, earlier this year added Google as a third public cloud partner following arrangements with AWS and Azure. Google Cloud partner firms specialize in a range of areas, including cloud migration, application development and data analytics.
Google Cloud partner offers managed services
Mike Lawrie, DXC's chairman, president and CEO, noted the Google partnership during an Aug. 8 earnings call. DXC officially kicked off the alliance Aug. 20, with DXC and Google providing additional details. Those include DXC's ability to resell Google Cloud Platform, which it hadn't done previously, and the IT service firm's plan to wrap managed services around GCP.
Many of our clients are in some form of transition or moving applications to public or private clouds.
Sita LowmanVice president and general manager of platform services at DXC
Sita Lowman, vice president and general manager of platform services at DXC, said the company's GCP-related services include consulting to help clients think through business problems and application transformation. "Many of our clients are in some form of transition or moving applications to public or private clouds," she noted, adding that DXC will work with customers to assess those applications.
The DXC-Google partnership also envisions using containers and Kubernetes to modernize customers' applications and providing advanced support and services around G Suite.
Carolee Gearhart, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Google Cloud, said the DXC partnership fits into the company's plans to bring GCP to large organizations. Gearhart said there is a "massive increase" in demand for Google offerings among enterprise customers. Arrangements with companies like DXC, she said, "accelerate our reach into those accounts."
Specific areas of opportunity the companies plan to pursue include AI and SAP migration. DXC is launching a GCP Center of Excellence and a Google Cloud Artificial Intelligence COE to offer customers cloud-based digital platforms that use data analytics capabilities.
SAP migration prospects
The Google and DXC SAP collaboration will unfold against the backdrop of the 2025 sunset deadline for SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) and SAP's push to get customers running on the SAP S/4HANA ERP suite.
The S/4HANA migration presents customers with an opening to consider moving from on premises to the public cloud, Lowman said. She said other clients may not be ready to move all the way to SAP S/4HANA and will instead look to move ECC into the public cloud. Still, other clients may consider an SAP migration as part of a broader movement of applications to the cloud.
SAP "may have other solutions attached to it," Gearhart added, noting customers may decide to migrate multiple applications at the same time.
SAP S/4HANA has been slow to take off, but hundreds of SAP partners have been undergoing training to help customers migrate from ECC to S/4HANA.
