SAP AG (SAP) Appoints Co-CEOS After CEO Resigns

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), the European Software giant and Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL) rival, Chairman and co-founder Hasso Plattner will take on a greater management role after the resignation of CEO Leo Apotheker.

Apotheker resigned after the SAP AG board refused to renew his contract, which was set to expire later this year.

The company appointed head of sales Bill McDermott and head of product development Jim Hagemann Snabe as co-CEOs.

Although the two executives are board members with decades of software industry experience, neither has played the role of CEO.

By getting more involved in management, Plattner will be expected to help guide the two new CEOs.

“SAP is still a major actor but it has lost its positive contact to customers,” said Frank Niemann, a SAP software consultant at Pierre Audoin Consultants in Munich. “Hasso is a software guru, a little like the Bill Gates of Europe. He’ll work more on developing technology. He has a very clear understanding of what’s going on in the market. But he can’t force the company in a new direction. That’ll be a challenge.”

In his first conference call with analysts and journalists in seven years, Plattner addressed the issues facing the company he co-founded in 1972.

“For a public company, profit is everything, but in order to be profitable it must be a happy company, and I will do everything in my power to make us a happy company again,” Plattner said.