SAP SE
Company History
SAP History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 1972 in Weinheim, Germany
When was SAP founded?
SAP was founded in 1972 in Weinheim, Germany by Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira and Claus Wellenreuther, making it 54 years old.
- Founded
- 1972
- Founding place
- Weinheim, Germany
- Founders
- Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira and Claus Wellenreuther
- Headquarters today
- Walldorf, Germany
- Milestones documented
- 12 (1972–2026)
- Current CEO
- Christian Klein
- Acquisitions
- 8
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1972 | SAP is founded |
| 1988 | SAP IPO |
| 1992 | SAP R/3 launches |
| 2010 | Sybase Acquired |
| 2014 | Acquired Concur Technologies |
| 2015 | S/4HANA launches |
| 2019 | Jennifer Morgan becomes CEO |
| 2019 | Acquired Qualtrics |
| 2020 | Christian Klein becomes sole CEO |
| 2023 | Joule announced |
| 2025 | Cloud revenue reaches ~$23.8B (EUR 21.023B) |
| 2026 | Dremio and Prior Labs acquisitions close |
- Where was SAP founded?
- SAP was founded in Weinheim, Germany in 1972. wikidata.org
- Who founded SAP?
- SAP was founded by Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira and Claus Wellenreuther.
- When did SAP start?
- SAP was founded in 1972.
- How old is SAP?
- SAP is 54 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
In 1972 five IBM Germany employees, Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira and Claus Wellenreuther, left to start Systemanalyse Programmentwicklung. They believed businesses would buy standard software that processed data in real time rather than in overnight batches. Their first customer was the German subsidiary of chemical maker ICI, and because the start-up had no computers of its own, the team worked on customers' mainframes, often at night. The first product, a financial accounting system later known as RF, became the base of the R/1 and R/2 systems.
Founders
Dietmar Hopp
Dietmar Hopp is one of SAP's five co-founders. After leaving IBM in 1972, he helped build the company's first real-time financial accounting software for chemical maker ICI. He served as co-CEO of SAP from 1988 to 1998 and later sat on the Supervisory Board. Outside SAP he is known for the Dietmar Hopp Foundation and his backing of football club TSG Hoffenheim. Dietmar Hopp was born in 1940 in Heidelberg. Hopp was born on April 26, 1940. His co-founders, all former IBM employees, were Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira, Claus Wellenreuther and Hasso Plattner. He owns the German Bundesliga football club TSG Hoffenheim.
Hasso Plattner
Hasso Plattner is the SAP co-founder most closely tied to its technology roadmap, from R/3 to the in-memory HANA database. He was co-CEO from 1988 to 2003 and chaired the Supervisory Board from 2003 until he stepped down at the May 2024 annual general meeting. He also founded the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam and funded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Hasso Plattner was born in 1944 in Berlin. Plattner was born on January 21, 1944. He chaired SAP's supervisory board from 2003 to 2024.
Hans-Werner Hector
Hans-Werner Hector is one of SAP's five co-founders. He worked on the company's early software and later served on its Executive Board. He co-founded the Hector Foundation, which funds science, medical research and education for gifted children in Germany. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Klaus Tschira
Klaus Tschira (1940-2015) was one of SAP's five co-founders and a long-serving member of its Executive Board and later its Supervisory Board. In 1995 he set up the Klaus Tschira Foundation, one of Germany's largest privately funded foundations, which supports natural sciences, mathematics and computer science. Education: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Tschira was born on December 7, 1940 and died on March 31, 2015. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Claus Wellenreuther
Wellenreuther co-founded SAP in 1972 alongside four colleagues. He specialized in financial accounting software and was instrumental in designing the foundational RF system, the predecessor to SAP R/1, before leaving the company in 1980 due to health reasons. Claus Wellenreuther was born in 1935 in Mannheim. Education: University of Mannheim. Wellenreuther was born on March 11, 1935 and died on March 21, 2026.
Key Milestones
SAP is founded
Five former IBM employees founded SAP to build real-time standard business software.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgSAP R/3 launches
R/3 brought client-server ERP to a broader global enterprise market.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgSybase Acquired
SAP bought the database company Sybase in 2010 for about $5.8 billion.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquired Concur Technologies
SAP acquired Concur Technologies for $8.3 billion. SAP bought Concur, the leading travel and expense management software provider, for about $8.3 billion to expand its cloud business and its network of business-spend services.
Source: prnewswire.comS/4HANA launches
S/4HANA became the foundation for SAP's next-generation ERP roadmap.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJennifer Morgan becomes CEO
Jennifer Morgan became CEO of SAP in 2019. Chief executive of SAP from 2019 to 2020.
Source: wikidata.orgAcquired Qualtrics
SAP acquired Qualtrics for $8 billion. SAP bought experience management company Qualtrics for about $8 billion in early 2019, shortly before Qualtrics' planned IPO, to link customer and employee sentiment data with operational data.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgChristian Klein becomes sole CEO
Christian Klein became sole chief executive of SAP SE in April 2020 after six months as co-CEO.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJoule announced
SAP introduced Joule as a generative AI assistant for enterprise applications.
Source: news.sap.comCloud revenue reaches ~$23.8B (EUR 21.023B)
SAP's 2025 results showed cloud revenue, backlog, and predictable revenue becoming central to the model.
Source: sap.comDremio and Prior Labs acquisitions close
SAP completed the Dremio and Prior Labs acquisitions in July 2026 to strengthen Business Data Cloud and AI on structured data.
Source: news.sap.comMajor Acquisitions
SuccessFactors
2012SAP agreed in December 2011 to buy cloud HR software company SuccessFactors for about $3.4 billion and closed the deal in February 2012, gaining a cloud human capital management product to compete with Workday.
Concur Technologies
2014SAP bought Concur, the leading travel and expense management software provider, for about $8.3 billion to expand its cloud business and its network of business-spend services. It was SAP's largest software-as-a-service acquisition at the time.
Qualtrics
2019SAP bought experience management company Qualtrics for about $8 billion in early 2019, shortly before Qualtrics' planned IPO, to link customer and employee sentiment data with operational data.
WalkMe
2024SAP bought digital adoption platform WalkMe for about $1.5 billion to add in-app guidance and workflow automation across SAP and non-SAP applications.
Dremio
2026Announced in May 2026 and completed in July 2026, the Dremio deal is meant to make SAP Business Data Cloud an Apache Iceberg-native lakehouse that unifies SAP and non-SAP data for AI agents. Terms were not disclosed.
Prior Labs
2026SAP acquired German start-up Prior Labs, a developer of tabular foundation models, to form a European frontier AI lab focused on structured business data. The deal closed in July 2026; SAP said the purchase would dilute 2026 non-IFRS operating profit.
Business Objects
2008SAP SE acquired Business Objects in 2008.
Fieldglass
2014SAP SE acquired Fieldglass in 2014.
Keep researching SAP
SAP Company History FAQ
When and where was SAP founded?
SAP was founded on April 1, 1972, in Weinheim, Germany, by five former IBM systems engineers: Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Claus Wellenreuther, Klaus Tschira, and Hans-Werner Hector.
What does the acronym "SAP" originally stand for?
SAP originally stood for "Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung" (System Analysis and Program Development), later renamed to "Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung" (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing).
Why did the five founders leave IBM to launch SAP in 1972?
While working at IBM Germany in Mannheim, the engineers built an automated real-time materials management program for client Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). When IBM ordered the project abandoned in favor of batch-processing mainframes, the five quit IBM to build real-time software independently.
What was the revolutionary concept of "Real-Time Processing" (SAP R/1)?
In 1973, SAP launched R/1 (where "R" stands for Real-time processing). Unlike legacy software that stored transactions on punch cards for overnight batch calculation, SAP R/1 updated financial accounts, inventory balances, and invoices on computer terminals instantaneously.
When was SAP R/2 launched and how did it establish multinational ERP?
Introduced in 1979 for IBM mainframe computers, SAP R/2 handled complex manufacturing, supply chain, and multi-currency/multi-language accounting, becoming the standard corporate management software for European multinational corporations.
What was the revolutionary impact of SAP R/3 in 1992?
Launched on July 6, 1992, SAP R/3 pioneered standard client-server relational database architecture, liberating enterprise software from proprietary mainframes to run on affordable UNIX and Windows NT servers, sparking explosive global adoption across the Fortune 500.
When did SAP go public on the stock exchange?
SAP listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in October 1988, raising capital to fund international expansion, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SAP) in August 1998, establishing itself as Europe's premier technology powerhouse.
Where is SAP's global corporate headquarters located?
While founded in nearby Weinheim, SAP moved its headquarters in 1977 to Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (near Heidelberg), where its sprawling technology campus remains the nerve center of European enterprise software.
When was SAP S/4HANA introduced and what was its core innovation?
Introduced in February 2015, SAP S/4HANA was SAP's next-generation ERP suite, purpose-built exclusively for the in-memory SAP HANA database, processing massive enterprise transactions in RAM rather than traditional disk drives, dramatically accelerating analytics and reporting.
What is the "RISE with SAP" program launched in 2021?
Launched in January 2021 by CEO Christian Klein, "RISE with SAP" is a comprehensive business-transformation-as-a-service offering that packages cloud migration, cloud ERP software, infrastructure hosting (hyperscalers), and business process intelligence into a single subscription contract.
Who is Christian Klein and what transformation has he led as CEO?
Christian Klein, a lifelong SAP leader who joined as a student in 1999, was appointed Co-CEO in 2019 and sole CEO in April 2020 at age 40. Klein orchestrated SAP's decisive cloud transformation, growing cloud backlog to record highs and accelerating business AI integration.
When did co-founder Hasso Plattner retire from the Supervisory Board?
In May 2024, co-founder Hasso Plattner officially retired as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SAP after 52 continuous years with the company, passing the chairmanship to former Nokia President Pekka Ala-Pietilä.
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