CAUTIOUSLY optimistic
My company is both an SAP on premise and an Ariba on demand user.
We were chuffed to hear that SAP was buying Ariba a few years ago. Early on, SAP and Ariba didn't play particularly well together. Even though SAP originally stated that Ariba would be allowed to do their own thing, we were curious to see how long that would last. Sure enough, when Calderoni left, that was the beginning of folding Ariba into the SAP corporate structure. These new departures, expected as the article points out, are the continuation of that process. I sincerely HOPE that SAP manages to do this smoothly and effectively. We are just starting our own HANA transformation and eyeing some additional Ariba bits and pieces. SAP R/3 and Ariba are playing much nicer together now and, if that trend continues, will be good for a lot of corporate users/subscribers.
Of course, it's also possible that SAP management will drop a deuce in the punchbowl... but hopefully not.