SAP SE (SAP) 2017 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the SAP Q3 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded.

美好的一天，歡迎參加 SAP 第三季度財報電話會議。今天的會議正在錄製中。

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Stefan Gruber. Please go ahead.

此時，我想將會議轉交給 Stefan Gruber。請繼續。

Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon. This is Stefan Gruber, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining us to discuss our results for the third quarter 2017. I'm joined by CEO, Bill McDermott and Luka Mucic, our CFO, who will both make opening remarks on the call today.

謝謝。早上好，下午好。我是投資者關係主管 Stefan Gruber。感謝您加入我們討論我們 2017 年第三季度的業績。首席執行官 Bill McDermott 和我們的首席財務官 Luka Mucic 也將加入我的行列，他們都將在今天的電話會議上發表開場白。

Also joining us for Q&A are board members, Rob Enslin, who runs Cloud Business Group; and Bernd Leukert, who leads Product and Innovation.

加入我們進行問答的還有董事會成員 Rob Enslin，他負責管理 Cloud Business Group；和負責產品和創新的 Bernd Leukert。

Before we get started, as usual, I want to say a few words about forward-looking statements and our use of non-IFRS financial measures.

在我們開始之前，像往常一樣，我想就前瞻性陳述和我們使用非 IFRS 財務措施說幾句話。

Any statements made during this call that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, forecast, intend, may, plan, project, predict, should, outlook and will and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements.

本次電話會議期間作出的任何非歷史事實的陳述都是前瞻性陳述，定義見美國 1995 年私人證券訴訟改革法案。預期、相信、估計、預期、預測、打算、可能、計劃、項目、預測、應該、前景和意願等詞語以及與 SAP 相關的類似表達方式旨在識別此類前瞻性陳述。

SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including SAP's Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2016 filed with the SEC on February 28, 2017.

SAP 不承擔公開更新或修改任何前瞻性陳述的義務。所有前瞻性陳述都受到各種風險和不確定性的影響，這些風險和不確定性可能導致實際結果與預期存在重大差異。可能影響 SAP 未來財務業績的因素在 SAP 向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中進行了更全面的討論，包括 SAP 於 2017 年 2 月 28 日向美國證券交易委員會提交的 2016 年 20-F 表格年度報告。

Participants of this call are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

提醒本次電話會議的參與者不要過分依賴這些前瞻性陳述，這些陳述僅代表截至日期。

On our Investor Relations website, you can find our quarterly statement and a financial summary slide deck, which are both intended to supplement our prepared remarks today and include a reconciliation from our non-IFRS numbers to IFRS numbers. Unless otherwise noted, all financial numbers referred to on this conference call are non-IFRS, and growth rates are non-IFRS at constant currencies. The non-IFRS financial measures we provide should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.

在我們的投資者關係網站上，您可以找到我們的季度報表和財務摘要幻燈片，它們都是為了補充我們今天準備好的評論，並包括我們的非 IFRS 數據與 IFRS 數據的對賬。除非另有說明，否則本次電話會議中提及的所有財務數據均為非 IFRS，增長率均為非 IFRS 固定匯率。我們提供的非 IFRS 財務指標不應被視為替代或優於根據 IFRS 編制的財務業績指標。

And with that, I like to turn things over to our CEO, Bill McDermott.

有了這個，我想把事情交給我們的首席執行官比爾麥克德莫特。

Thank you very much, Stefan, and hi, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today to discuss another strong quarter for SAP, another increase in SAP's full year guidance, and a clear path to the future for the world's business software market leader.

非常感謝，Stefan，大家好。感謝您今天加入我們，討論 SAP 的另一個強勁季度、SAP 全年指導的再次增加，以及全球商業軟件市場領導者通往未來的清晰路徑。

Let's begin with Q3 results. Today, SAP reaffirmed its position as a profitable growth company, steady as we go. We delivered strong growth across the whole product portfolio. We once again delivered a trifecta of software, cloud and operating income growth. Cloud was up 27% in Q3 and is up nearly 30% year-to-date. A stellar software license performance, up 3% in Q3 and up an impressive 5% year-to-date. Cloud and software was up 8% in Q3, and also up 8% year-to-date. We expanded in every region, led by a strong growth performance in China. It's clear that treating China as our second home is really paying off.

讓我們從第三季度的結果開始。今天，SAP 重申了其作為盈利增長型公司的地位，穩步前進。我們在整個產品組合中實現了強勁增長。我們再次實現了軟件、雲和營業收入增長的三重奏。雲計算在第三季度上漲了 27%，今年迄今上漲了近 30%。出色的軟件許可表現，第三季度增長 3%，今年迄今增長 5%，令人印象深刻。雲和軟件在第三季度增長了 8%，今年迄今也增長了 8%。在中國強勁增長的帶動下，我們在每個地區都進行了擴張。很明顯，將中國視為我們的第二故鄉確實得到了回報。

Overall, we saw a continued business momentum despite significant currency headwinds. Once again, our results continued SAP's tradition of profitable growth. EPS was up double digits. Operating profit was up 4%. And this is continued expansion of absolute operating income even as we executed a successful business transformation to the cloud for SAP stakeholders.

總體而言，儘管存在重大貨幣逆風，我們仍看到了持續的業務勢頭。我們的業績再一次延續了 SAP 盈利增長的傳統。每股收益增長了兩位數。營業利潤增長了 4%。這是絕對營業收入的持續增長，即使我們為 SAP 利益相關者成功地向雲執行了業務轉型。

As discussed in July, first half hiring is now complete. You're now seeing the benefit of a fully engaged, inspired SAP workforce. As we drive further profitability improvements to deliver on our 2020 ambition, we have appointed a new board member. His name is Christian Klein. As COO of the company, Christian will accelerate monetization of core business processes, consistent with SAP's cloud and platform strategy. Welcome to the team, Christian.

正如 7 月份所討論的那樣，上半年的招聘現已完成。您現在看到了全心全意、充滿靈感的 SAP 員工隊伍的好處。在我們推動進一步提高盈利能力以實現我們 2020 年的雄心之際，我們任命了一名新的董事會成員。他的名字叫克里斯蒂安·克萊因。作為公司的首席運營官，Christian 將加快核心業務流程的貨幣化，這與 SAP 的雲和平台戰略保持一致。歡迎加入團隊，克里斯蒂安。

Let me now turn to our growth drivers for SAP, the most innovative cloud company powered by SAP HANA. License sales growth grew 3%, exceeding expectations. S/4HANA adoption grew to more than 6,900 customers, up 70% year-over-year. 600 additional customers signed up, of which 40% were net new. S/4HANA continues to be adopted by the most forward-thinking global companies. Nvidia, China International Marine Containers and DEUTZ AG are some of many that selected S/4HANA in Q3.

現在讓我談談 SAP 的增長動力，SAP 是一家由 SAP HANA 提供支持的最具創新性的雲公司。許可銷售增長 3%，超出預期。S/4HANA 的採用率增長到 6,900 多家客戶，同比增長 70%。新增 600 名客戶簽約，其中 40% 是全新客戶。S/4HANA 繼續被最具前瞻性的全球公司採用。Nvidia、中國國際海運集裝箱和 DEUTZ AG 是第三季度選擇 S/4HANA 的眾多公司中的一部分。

Many other leading companies went live on S/4 in Q3, including Tom Tailor and Daimler.

許多其他領先的公司在第三季度在 S/4 上線，包括 Tom Tailor 和戴姆勒。

S/4HANA again grew new cloud bookings triple digits in Q3. Even as some in the industry have decided to go low, I'll stay high. The reality is that we've added more cloud ERP customers in 7 months than some competitors have added in 7 years. If you count procurement, we have many thousands of cloud ERP customers. The only measure that matters for SAP is customer success and loyalty. Customers are going live with S/4 in as little as 6 weeks. S/4 is proving very attractive to large enterprises for 2-tier ERP.

S/4HANA 在第三季度再次將新的雲預訂量增長了三位數。即使業內一些人決定走低，我也會保持高位。現實情況是，我們在 7 個月內增加的雲 ERP 客戶數量超過了一些競爭對手在 7 年內增加的數量。如果算上採購，我們有成千上萬的雲 ERP 客戶。對 SAP 來說唯一重要的衡量標準是客戶的成功和忠誠度。客戶將在短短 6 週內使用 S/4。事實證明，S/4 對大型企業的 2 層 ERP 非常有吸引力。

S/4HANA is built on a consistent data model, regardless of its deployment method. The S/4HANA generational upgrade cycle is still in the very early stages, and it represents a massive multiyear growth opportunity. SAP's ERP leadership is customer-driven at the core. Shell has chosen SAP S/4HANA ERP cloud as their strategic platform for the next generation of cloud-based ERPs and will enable future innovations across their company. The SAP ERP Cloud Platform will help Shell to simplify complex business processes.

S/4HANA 建立在一致的數據模型之上，無論其部署方法如何。S/4HANA 世代升級週期仍處於早期階段，代表著巨大的多年增長機會。SAP 的 ERP 領導地位以客戶為導向。殼牌已選擇 SAP S/4HANA ERP 云作為其下一代基於雲的 ERP 的戰略平台，並將推動整個公司的未來創新。SAP ERP 雲平台將幫助殼牌簡化複雜的業務流程。

Sixt Leasing, a German provider of fleet and leasing management, has selected S/4HANA ERP Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors and the whole suite of their applications, SAP Cloud Platform and analytics cloud to digitize their processes and analytics capabilities for further growth, in other words, everything in the cloud. Overall, new cloud bookings grew 19% in Q3 and 30% year-to-date.

德國車隊和租賃管理提供商 Sixt Leasing 選擇了 S/4HANA ERP Cloud、SAP SuccessFactors 及其全套應用程序、SAP Cloud Platform 和分析雲，以數字化其流程和分析能力以實現進一步增長，換言之，雲中的一切。總體而言，新的雲預訂在第三季度增長了 19%，今年迄今增長了 30%。

Now, as you may recall from Q3 2016, we experienced some seasonality in our cloud business on a smaller base. When you think about SAP's cloud growth, we increasingly see customers pursuing more large-scale transformations, which have a tendency to close in Q4. This is another factor in our confidence to deliver a strong full year performance of at least, at least, 30% year-over-year cloud bookings growth. And you can expect a dynamite Q4, and very consistent with our year-to-date growth rate in revenues.

現在，您可能還記得 2016 年第三季度，我們的雲業務在較小的基礎上經歷了一些季節性。當你想到 SAP 的雲增長時，我們越來越多地看到客戶追求更大規模的轉型，這些轉型有可能在第四季度結束。這是我們有信心實現至少 30% 的雲預訂量同比增長的強勁全年業績的另一個因素。你可以期待第四季度的爆發，並且與我們年初至今的收入增長率非常一致。

So don't worry about the bookings. Relax, it's going to be terrific in Q4. One example of a huge upsell cross-sell opportunity is our reinvigorated analytics portfolio, led by SAP's Digital Boardroom. They posted strong double-digit new cloud bookings for growth in Q3.

所以不用擔心預訂。放輕鬆，第四季度會很棒。一個巨大的追加銷售交叉銷售機會的例子是由 SAP 的 Digital Boardroom 領導的我們重振的分析產品組合。他們在第三季度公佈了強勁的兩位數新雲預訂量增長。

SAP Hybris, our customer engagement solutions, again achieved strong double-digit new cloud bookings growth as well as double-digit growth in software revenue. Harbin Pharmaceutical chose SAP Hybris in Q3. We also announced the acquisition of Gigya, the market leader in customer identity and access management. This will further enhance SAP's commerce solutions by allowing companies to better manage customer's profile, preference, opt in and consent setting, with customers maintaining control of their data at all times. This is especially timely, given the March deadline to comply with GDPR in 2018. We're pretty excited about our unique position to capitalize on that market opportunity.

我們的客戶互動解決方案 SAP Hybris 再次實現了兩位數的強勁新雲預訂增長以及軟件收入的兩位數增長。哈藥在第三季度選擇了 SAP Hybris。我們還宣布收購客戶身份和訪問管理領域的市場領導者 Gigya。這將允許公司更好地管理客戶的資料、偏好、選擇加入和同意設置，從而進一步增強 SAP 的商務解決方案，同時客戶始終保持對其數據的控制。考慮到 2018 年遵守 GDPR 的最後期限是 3 月，這尤其及時。我們對利用這一市場機會的獨特地位感到非常興奮。

SAP SuccessFactors saw another big quarter with new customer additions. SuccessFactors Employee Central now has over 2,000 customers worldwide, up 49% year-over-year. SAP SuccessFactors was named a leader in Forrester's research Wave. La Liga, the Spanish football league, and Bancolombia, the largest commercial bank in Colombia, selected SAP's workforce management solutions in the third quarter to deliver unified, high-quality employee experiences.

隨著新客戶的增加，SAP SuccessFactors 又迎來了一個重要的季度。SuccessFactors Employee Central 現在在全球擁有 2,000 多家客戶，同比增長 49%。SAP SuccessFactors 在 Forrester 的研究浪潮中被評為領導者。西班牙足球聯賽西甲聯賽和哥倫比亞最大的商業銀行 Bancolombia 在第三季度選擇了 SAP 的勞動力管理解決方案，以提供統一、優質的員工體驗。

SAP Ariba now has 3 million companies in 180 countries, trading more than USD 1 trillion in goods and services annually on the Ariba network. Whirlpool and Ferrero chose Ariba this quarter. With SAP Fieldglass, customers manage 4 million contingent workers in more than 180 countries.

SAP Ariba 現在在 180 個國家/地區擁有 300 萬家公司，每年在 Ariba 網絡上交易超過 1 萬億美元的商品和服務。惠而浦和費列羅本季度選擇了Ariba。借助 SAP Fieldglass，客戶可以管理 180 多個國家/地區的 400 萬臨時工。

Concur helps now nearly 50 million end users effortlessly process travel and expenses. We're proud that Concur's travel management solution helped usher emergency workers to points of dire need in Texas and Florida. FEMA chose to implement a Concur feature called Surge Blanket Travel to deploy 11,000 federal employees from across the United States in record time. The unifying vision of SAP is to help the world run better and improve people's lives. Driven by this high purpose, SAP is gaining share everywhere. You can see this clearly in combined order entry, cloud TCV plus software. Combine those 2 numbers, we are up a stellar 15% this year.

Concur 現在幫助近 5000 萬最終用戶輕鬆處理差旅和費用。我們感到自豪的是，Concur 的差旅管理解決方案幫助緊急救援人員前往德克薩斯州和佛羅里達州的急需地點。FEMA 選擇實施一項名為 Surge Blanket Travel 的 Concur 功能，以創紀錄的時間部署來自美國各地的 11,000 名聯邦僱員。SAP 的統一願景是幫助世界運轉得更好，改善人們的生活。在這種崇高目標的驅使下，SAP 在各地都獲得了份額。您可以在組合訂單輸入、雲 TCV 和軟件中清楚地看到這一點。結合這兩個數字，我們今年上漲了 15%。

In contrast to our main competitor's report out, SAP is an organic innovation story. We have no benefit from acquisitions in our numbers and we haven't for the last 2-plus years. SAP is the only company in the business software industry at scale to deliver both fast cloud growth and license growth. SAP's integrated solutions portfolio is really paying off for our customers. Line-of-business applications and the Digital Core are seamlessly linked in a true end-to-end offering across industries for our customers. SAP's innovation agenda also ensures a clear path to future growth.

與我們主要競爭對手的報告相比，SAP 是一個有機的創新故事。我們沒有從數量上的收購中獲益，而且在過去 2 年多的時間裡也沒有。SAP 是商業軟件行業中唯一一家大規模實現雲快速增長和許可證增長的公司。SAP 的集成解決方案組合確實為我們的客戶帶來了回報。業務線應用程序和數字核心無縫鏈接，為我們的客戶提供跨行業的真正端到端產品。SAP 的創新議程還確保了未來增長的清晰路徑。

At the epicenter of the digital revolution is SAP Leonardo. Leonardo gives SAP customers the tools to adopt breakthrough innovation for intelligent processes and new business models. It combines SAP's deep process and industry domain expertise with cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, big data, machine learning, analytics and blockchain. You're already seeing Leonardo breakthroughs embedded in SAP solutions from S/4HANA to SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Hybris. For example, IoT in tandem with Digital Supply Chain was a standout in Q3, growing new cloud bookings in high triple digits. Citrosuco in Brazil, which supplies about 25% of the global orange juice market, turned to SAP Leonardo together with SAP S/4HANA and SAP supply chain. The combination of SAP solutions will connect farms to manufacturing sites and optimize transportation logistics worldwide. Many others, including Citco Technology Management, Hanon Systems, Al-Futtaim, adopted SAP Leonardo solutions in the third quarter because they want to become intelligent enterprises.

處於數字革命中心的是 SAP Leonardo。Leonardo 為 SAP 客戶提供了針對智能流程和新業務模型採用突破性創新的工具。它將 SAP 的深度流程和行業領域專業知識與物聯網、大數據、機器學習、分析和區塊鍊等尖端技術相結合。從 S/4HANA 到 SAP SuccessFactors 和 SAP Hybris，您已經看到 Leonardo 在 SAP 解決方案中的突破。例如，物聯網與數字供應鏈相結合在第三季度表現突出，新的雲預訂量增長了三位數。供應約 25% 全球橙汁市場份額的巴西 Citrosuco 與 SAP S/4HANA 和 SAP 供應鏈一起求助於 SAP Leonardo。SAP 解決方案的組合將連接農場和生產基地，並優化全球運輸物流。許多其他公司，包括 Citco Technology Management、Hanon Systems、Al-Futtaim，都在第三季度採用了 SAP Leonardo 解決方案，因為他們希望成為智能企業。

With our API hub and open SAP Cloud Platform, our ecosystem is also incubating new innovations. We're excited that new partnerships will proliferate the SAP platform across the hyperscale public cloud providers.

通過我們的 API 中心和開放的 SAP Cloud Platform，我們的生態系統也在孵化新的創新。我們很高興新的合作夥伴關係將在超大規模公共雲提供商中擴展 SAP 平台。

Our successful strategy and execution has cultivated a business model that has never been stronger. Our more predictable support and cloud subscription revenue is on target to reach 70% to 75% of our total revenues by 2020, right on track.

我們成功的戰略和執行培養了一種前所未有的強大商業模式。我們更可預測的支持和雲訂閱收入的目標是到 2020 年達到我們總收入的 70% 到 75%，一切順利。

Our desire for more predictable revenue provides strategic flexibility for capital allocation to deliver ever-increasing shareholder value. One example, Luka will update you shortly on the progress of our EUR 500 million share buyback plan. Another example is our consistent dividend payout, which remains the best in the industry. SAP's broad global footprint, diversification and ever-larger recurring base provide resilience in an uncertain world.

我們對更可預測的收入的渴望為資本分配提供了戰略靈活性，以實現不斷增長的股東價值。例如，Luka 將很快向您介紹我們 5 億歐元股票回購計劃的進展情況。另一個例子是我們始終如一的股息支付，這仍然是業內最好的。SAP 廣泛的全球足跡、多元化和不斷擴大的經常性基礎為不確定的世界提供了彈性。

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, SAP is evolving from the business system of record to the platform for the digital revolution. Led by SAP S/4HANA, we are delivering intelligent business applications, built on the most data-rich architecture ever created. We go to market with a tightly integrated core, with distinctly different industry expertise in each of our 25 industries, and we adapt our solutions to every geographic market.

總之，女士們先生們，SAP 正在從業務記錄系統發展為數字革命平台。在 SAP S/4HANA 的帶領下，我們正在交付智能業務應用程序，這些應用程序構建在有史以來數據最豐富的架構之上。我們以緊密集成的核心進入市場，在我們的 25 個行業中的每一個行業都擁有截然不同的行業專業知識，並且我們使我們的解決方案適應每個地理市場。

Customers are voting with their wallets. This is fueling growth in every corner of the business, which is why we are once again raising guidance for the full year. I'd like to acknowledge our over 87,000 women and men worldwide for their immense dedication to our customers and our shareholders. Another strong quarter, another guidance raise, a clear path to sustained growth with, and I underscore with, margin expansion on the horizon in Q4 and beyond. Margin expansion on the horizon in Q4 and beyond. For SAP, the best is unquestionably yet to come. Thanks for your interest and all your support.

客戶正在用他們的錢包投票。這正在推動業務各個方面的增長，這就是為什麼我們再次提高全年業績預期的原因。我要感謝我們全球 87,000 多名男女員工對我們的客戶和股東的巨大奉獻。又一個強勁的季度，又一次的指引上調，一條清晰的持續增長之路，我強調，第四季度及以後的利潤率擴張。第四季度及以後的利潤率擴張。對於 SAP 來說，最好的無疑還在後頭。感謝您的關注和所有支持。

I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Luka Mucic. Luka, over to you.

我現在將電話轉給我們的首席財務官 Luka Mucic。盧卡，交給你了。

Yes. Thanks very much, Bill. And hello, everybody, from my side. Bill already shared some of our results on yet another strong quarter in our rock-solid core business and our fast-growing cloud business. In addition to our overall strong business performance, we continuously have a more predictable business now. Now at a 66% share of total revenue for the first 9 months of the year.

是的。非常感謝，比爾。大家好，我這邊。比爾已經分享了我們堅如磐石的核心業務和快速增長的雲業務又一個強勁季度的一些結果。除了我們整體強勁的業務表現外，我們現在的業務持續更具可預測性。現在佔今年前 9 個月總收入的 66%。

We clearly demonstrated that we are a profitable growth company despite severe currency headwinds. To get a better understanding of the key factors that made up for this growth, let me go into more detail now.

儘管存在嚴重的貨幣逆風，我們清楚地表明我們是一家盈利增長的公司。為了更好地了解造成這種增長的關鍵因素，讓我現在詳細介紹一下。

The key metric that demonstrates our performance in new business for the quarter is the strong year-over-year growth in new cloud and software license order entry, which was up 15%. This growth is indeed a strong achievement, especially when considering SAP's large scale. Specifically to our cloud business, our new cloud bookings grew by 19%, and our cloud revenue growth came in at 27%. We do have visibility into a very robust cloud pipeline and are extremely confident of continued fast growth for the remainder of this year and through 2020.

證明我們本季度新業務表現的關鍵指標是新雲和軟件許可訂單輸入的同比強勁增長，增長了 15%。這種增長確實是一項了不起的成就，尤其是考慮到 SAP 的龐大規模。具體到我們的雲業務，我們新的雲預訂量增長了 19%，我們的雲收入增長了 27%。我們確實了解非常強大的雲管道，並且對今年剩餘時間和 2020 年持續快速增長充滿信心。

This quarter, however, we didn't see the linearity we hoped for. As Bill already mentioned, with new cloud bookings in the quarter, we noticed that some customers are attaching line-of-business cloud decisions to larger S/4HANA transformational deals. Because of this, we do expect a much better Q4. And also, please remember that new high-potential cloud solutions like S/4HANA public cloud, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP analytics cloud and SAP Leonardo will have more impact on growth as they scale to be a bigger part of the mix.

然而，本季度我們沒有看到我們希望的線性。正如 Bill 已經提到的那樣，隨著本季度新的雲預訂，我們注意到一些客戶正在將業務線雲決策附加到更大的 S/4HANA 轉型交易中。因此，我們確實期望第四季度會好得多。此外，請記住，新的高潛力雲解決方案，如 S/4HANA 公共雲、SAP 雲平台、SAP 分析雲和 SAP Leonardo 將對增長產生更大的影響，因為它們會擴展到組合中的更大部分。

On a year-to-date basis, we are on track with cloud revenue growth of 28% and new cloud bookings growth at 30%. Before I continue with software revenue and our regional performance, I want to briefly mention the change in our disclosures. Over the last years, we have been disclosing a number for deferred cloud revenue that is for the cloud portion of our total deferred income. As you certainly know, we will adopt new revenue recognition rules for January 1, 2018, commonly known as IFRS 15, with ASC 606 being the U.S. GAAP equivalent.

從年初至今，我們有望實現 28% 的雲收入增長和 30% 的新雲預訂增長。在我繼續介紹軟件收入和我們的地區業績之前，我想簡單地提一下我們披露的變化。在過去的幾年裡，我們一直在披露遞延雲收入的數字，這是我們總遞延收入的雲部分。如您所知，我們將於 2018 年 1 月 1 日採用新的收入確認規則，通常稱為 IFRS 15，其中 ASC 606 相當於美國 GAAP。

There is no deferred revenue item anymore under IFRS 15. The new rules instead look at contract assets and contract liabilities, which are not determined on the level of the individual deliverables, but on the level of the entire contract. Whether a contract is in a liability position and asset position or neither does not depend on when the customer is billed. At SAP, we are now in the final home stretch of migrating our processes and our customer contracts to IFRS 15. At this point of our migration, we have no reliable way to report deferred cloud revenue any longer.

IFRS 15 下不再有遞延收入項目。新規則反而著眼於合同資產和合同負債，它們不是在單個可交付成果的水平上確定的，而是在整個合同的水平上確定的。合同是否處於負債狀況和資產狀況或兩者都不取決於向客戶開具賬單的時間。在 SAP，我們現在正處於將我們的流程和客戶合同遷移到 IFRS 15 的最後階段。在我們遷移的這一點上，我們再也沒有可靠的方法來報告遞延的雲收入。

The best way to measure our new cloud business volume, as we have repeatedly stated on past quarters, is with new cloud bookings, which we of course continue to disclose. In the coming months, we will provide further details around our new disclosures under IFRS 15.

正如我們在過去幾個季度反复聲明的那樣，衡量我們新的雲業務量的最佳方式是新的雲預訂，我們當然會繼續披露這一點。在接下來的幾個月裡，我們將根據 IFRS 15 提供有關新披露的更多詳細信息。

Now from a software perspective, as Bill has stated already, we had great success and we grew by 3%. There were 2 main growth drivers: first, the continuous momentum of S/4HANA; and the other driver continues to be our customer engagement and commerce solutions, which again showed strong double-digit growth. All of this resides in strong cloud and software growth at 8% in both the quarter and year-to-date.

現在從軟件的角度來看，正如比爾已經說過的那樣，我們取得了巨大的成功，增長了 3%。增長動力主要有兩個：一是S/4HANA的持續發展勢頭；另一個驅動因素仍然是我們的客戶參與和商務解決方案，它們再次顯示出強勁的兩位數增長。所有這一切都歸功於本季度和年初至今強勁的雲計算和軟件增長 8%。

Now let me spend a few words on the third quarter regional results, starting with Europe. We had a really strong performance in the EMEA region with cloud and software revenue increasing by 9%. Cloud revenue grew by 46% with an especially strong quarter in Germany and Spain. In addition, we had strong double-digit software revenue growth in Germany, Russia, and the Middle East and North Africa region.

現在讓我從歐洲開始談談第三季度的區域業績。我們在歐洲、中東和非洲地區的表現非常強勁，雲和軟件收入增長了 9%。雲收入增長了 46%，其中德國和西班牙的季度表現尤為強勁。此外，我們在德國、俄羅斯以及中東和北非地區的軟件收入實現了強勁的兩位數增長。

We had solid growth in the Americas region despite the natural disasters in both the United States and Mexico. Cloud and software revenue in this region grew by 7%. Cloud revenue increased by 19%. In cloud revenue, Brazil was a highlight, while the United States had a very strong quarter in software revenue.

儘管美國和墨西哥都發生自然災害，但我們在美洲地區實現了穩健增長。該地區的雲和軟件收入增長了 7%。雲收入增長了 19%。在雲收入方面，巴西是亮點，而美國在軟件收入方面表現強勁。

In APJ region, we had a strong performance in both cloud and software revenue as well as cloud revenue. Cloud and software revenue was up 9%. Cloud revenue grew by 37%. Japan and Australia were very strong in cloud revenue. For software revenue, Australia had triple-digit growth, and China had strong double-digit growth.

在 APJ 地區，我們在雲和軟件收入以及雲收入方面都表現強勁。雲和軟件收入增長了 9%。雲收入增長了 37%。日本和澳大利亞的雲收入非常強勁。在軟件收入方面，澳大利亞實現了三位數增長，而中國實現了兩位數的強勁增長。

Now onto profitability and gross margins. As you know, we continue to have a revenue mix-shift effect between our cloud and on-premise business, which negatively impacts our cloud and software margin. Our cloud and software gross margin decreased by 1.3 percentage points year-over-year. The mix shift impacted this margin by [17] basis points. Our cloud gross margin decreased by 3.3 percentage points, which was lower than we expected. The impact was due to our continued investment in a highly standardized converged HANA-based cloud platform and expenses incurred for the ramp up of new technologies such as our S/4HANA public cloud. These investments, in particular, impacted our public cloud margin, but to a lower extent, they also impacted our network margin. The public cloud margin declined by 4.3 percentage points, and the network cloud margin decreased by 80 basis points.

現在談談盈利能力和毛利率。如您所知，我們的雲和本地業務之間繼續產生收入混合轉移效應，這對我們的雲和軟件利潤率產生了負面影響。我們的雲和軟件毛利率同比下降 1.3 個百分點。混合轉變對該利潤率產生了 [17] 個基點的影響。我們的雲毛利率下降了 3.3 個百分點，低於我們的預期。造成這種影響的原因是我們持續投資於高度標準化的基於 HANA 的融合雲平台，以及為提升我們的 S/4HANA 公共雲等新技術而產生的費用。這些投資尤其影響了我們的公共雲利潤率，但在較小程度上，它們也影響了我們的網絡利潤率。公有云利潤率下降4.3個百分點，網絡雲利潤率下降80個基點。

For the private cloud, we also saw a decrease, but this was mainly due to an industry-wide short-term increase in the cost of RAM, which resulted in a year-over-year increase in infrastructure costs. It's also important to remember that while our private cloud is a lower-margin business compared to other cloud models, it is a strong enabler of S/4HANA software deals. Thus, with every deal, it also drives high-margin software and support business.

對於私有云，我們也看到了下降，但這主要是由於整個行業 RAM 成本的短期上漲，導致基礎設施成本同比增長。同樣重要的是要記住，雖然我們的私有云與其他雲模型相比是一項利潤率較低的業務，但它是 S/4HANA 軟件交易的強大推動力。因此，對於每筆交易，它也推動了高利潤的軟件和支持業務。

And let me be very clear, our dedicated cloud investments are laying the groundwork for gradually increasing profitability on the way to achieving our 2020 ambition.

讓我非常清楚，我們專門的雲投資正在為逐步提高盈利能力奠定基礎，以實現我們 2020 年的雄心壯志。

A highlight in this quarter, again, was our services performance. Our services gross margin continued its upward trend, as expected, and was up 5.2 percentage points year-over-year. This was driven by the continued reduction of co-investment projects and a solid top line increase. This strong service result helped us keep our cloud -- overall group gross margin stable year-over-year. We achieved this result despite the currency headwinds and investments into cloud, as mentioned before. Overall, we were very pleased that our operating profit continues to expand with mid-single-digit growth this quarter.

本季度的一大亮點再次是我們的服務表現。正如預期的那樣，我們的服務毛利率繼續呈上升趨勢，同比增長 5.2 個百分點。這是由於共同投資項目的持續減少和穩健的收入增長所推動的。這一強勁的服務成果幫助我們保持了雲——集團整體毛利率同比穩定。如前所述，儘管存在貨幣逆風和對雲的投資，我們還是取得了這一結果。總的來說，我們很高興我們的營業利潤在本季度以中等個位數的速度繼續增長。

The IFRS earnings per share increased strongly by 35% due to lower share-based compensation, acquisition-related charges and restructuring costs. Non-IFRS earnings per share increased by 10%, driven primarily by a very strong finance income as our Sapphire Ventures organization had again a very successful quarter.

由於基於股份的薪酬、收購相關費用和重組成本較低，IFRS 每股收益強勁增長了 35%。非 IFRS 每股收益增長了 10%，這主要是由於我們的 Sapphire Ventures 組織再次取得了非常成功的季度，因此財務收入非常強勁。

The IFRS tax rate in the third quarter increased slightly to 28.6% year-over-year, while the non-IFRS tax rate in the third quarter was 29.2%, which is down 50 basis points from the prior year period. We now expect our full year IFRS and non-IFRS effective tax rate to be below our previous outlook, which so far was 26% to 27% for IFRS, and 27% to 28% for non-IFRS. The expected decrease is due to a positive onetime tax effect relating to an intragroup transfer of intellectual property rights anticipated to be executed in Q4.

第三季度的 IFRS 稅率同比小幅上升至 28.6%，而第三季度的非 IFRS 稅率為 29.2%，較上年同期下降 50 個基點。我們現在預計我們全年的 IFRS 和非 IFRS 有效稅率將低於我們之前的預期，到目前為止，IFRS 為 26% 至 27%，非 IFRS 為 27% 至 28%。預期減少是由於與預計將於第四季度執行的集團內部知識產權轉讓相關的一次性稅收影響。

During the course of the fourth quarter, we will update our effective tax rate guidance as soon as we exactly know the effect from the IP transfer. We now overall expect a very strong non-IFRS earnings-per-share performance for the entire year.

在第四季度期間，一旦我們確切了解知識產權轉讓的影響，我們將更新我們的有效稅率指南。我們現在總體上預計全年的非 IFRS 每股收益表現非常強勁。

As promised, last quarter, we initiated our plan to buy back up to EUR 500 million in shares for the second half of the year. We briefly alluded to that. As of quarter-end, we have already bought back more than half of that, to be exact and precise, EUR 288 million. The rest to follow during the course of Q4.

正如所承諾的那樣，上個季度，我們啟動了下半年回購高達 5 億歐元股票的計劃。我們簡要地提到了這一點。截至季度末，我們已經回購了其中的一半以上，準確地說是 2.88 億歐元。其餘的將在第四季度進行。

And on top of that, we continue our strong cash generation, with operating cash flow of more than EUR 4 billion year-to-date or an increase of 14% year-over-year. From a liquidity perspective, our net debt was down to EUR 1.7 billion, which is an improvement of EUR 2 billion year-over-year.

最重要的是，我們繼續保持強勁的現金流，年初至今的經營現金流超過 40 億歐元，同比增長 14%。從流動性角度來看，我們的淨債務降至 17 億歐元，同比減少 20 億歐元。

Now finally, as a result of our strong adoption of S/4HANA and our digital business platform, we are raising our outlook for the full year. And we have also updated our currency expectations for the impact on reported growth rates in 2017. For more details, please refer to our quarterly statement published earlier today.

最後，由於我們大力採用 S/4HANA 和我們的數字業務平台，我們提高了對全年的展望。我們還更新了我們對 2017 年報告增長率影響的貨幣預期。有關詳細信息，請參閱我們今天早些時候發布的季度報表。

I would also like to talk about a few of our key nonfinancial indicators because they are equally important to us as the management to steer the company. This quarter, we increased the number of women in management even further to 25.2% as our efforts to promote diversity and equality continue. In line with our goal to become carbon neutral by 2025, we reduced our third quarter CO2 emissions by 6% compared to the prior year. And finally, our employees continue to embrace our strategy and higher purpose. Our employee retention was at a very high 94.2%.

我還想談一談我們的一些關鍵非財務指標，因為它們對我們作為管理公司的管理層同樣重要。本季度，隨著我們繼續努力促進多元化和平等，我們將管理層中的女性人數進一步增加到 25.2%。為了實現到 2025 年實現碳中和的目標，我們第三季度的二氧化碳排放量比上一年減少了 6%。最後，我們的員工繼續擁護我們的戰略和更高的目標。我們的員工保留率高達 94.2%。

So to summarize, we delivered solid top line growth and continue to expand our operating profit. For the second quarter in a row, we have raised our guidance. On top of that, our cash generation and EPS growth remains strong. Our performance, our portfolio and our pipeline make us confident and make me confident that we will deliver on our midterm ambitions.

因此，總而言之，我們實現了穩健的收入增長，並繼續擴大我們的營業利潤。我們連續第二個季度提高了我們的指導。最重要的是，我們的現金產生和每股收益增長依然強勁。我們的業績、我們的投資組合和我們的管道讓我們充滿信心，也讓我相信我們將實現我們的中期目標。

Thank you very much. And we will now be happy to take your questions.

非常感謝。我們現在很樂意回答您的問題。

Thank you, operator. Could you please start the Q&A session?

謝謝你，運營商。你能開始問答環節嗎？

(Operator Instructions) We'll now take our first question from Walter Pritchard from Citi.

（操作員說明）我們現在將接受來自花旗銀行的沃爾特普里查德的第一個問題。

Luka, I'm wondering if you could put a little bit more detail around the commentary around margins in Q4, and then directionally for next year. I think the gross margin did come down more than we expected in Q3, but it sounds like you still have the confidence that the progress there is on track. And I'm wondering, what do you expect to have in cloud gross margins in the fourth quarter? And then, do you expect that you could get back to or above the levels that you've seen for the year in 2017 when you get into 2018 with most of the migrations and so forth behind you at that point?

盧卡，我想知道你是否可以在第四季度的利潤率評論中提供更多細節，然後是明年的方向性評論。我認為毛利率確實比我們在第三季度的預期下降得更多，但聽起來你仍然有信心進展順利。我想知道，您預計第四季度的雲毛利率是多少？然後，當你進入 2018 年時，你是否預計你可以回到或超過你在 2017 年看到的水平，那時大部分遷移等等都在你身後？

Yes, Walter, thanks for the question. It's indeed an important one. And let me start by saying that I have actually have been very pleased with the discipline that I've been seeing across the organization in Q3 to absolutely make sure that we bring down the gap between revenue and expense growth that we have seen in the first half year. That's exactly in line with what we have committed to you. And you see that in the results that our operating margin declined in Q3. It decelerated to only 90 basis points from a year-to-date performance of 1.2 percentage points. That sets us up for a situation in which I believe that with continued strong expense discipline as well as the expected strong business performance that also Bill alluded to, we have now a very decent shot at managing towards a flat margin on a constant currency basis for Q4. And for 2018, absolutely, the commitment stands that we will start to see improvements in margin. Especially in the years 2019 and '20, they will be more accentuated, but already in 2018, we should definitely see an improvement, yes. In terms of the cloud gross margin, you are correct, we -- as I've shared as well during my comments, we have seen a decline to an extent that was not part of our original planning. The reasons are very simple, we see 1 to 2 percentage points in less revenues from the low linearity on bookings that we have alluded to. So on the revenue is -- there is a small shortfall against our original expectations. And on the investment side, we actually have decided to accelerate investments into the converged cloud platform as well as into some geographical expansions where we saw opportunities to make sure that we are at the market earlier than our competitors in such geographies that are opening up to the cloud quickly now, in order to seize those opportunities. That has resulted in a situation that cloud gross margins in 2017 are a bit lower than expected. But the fundamental thesis that all of those investments are setting us up to exponential gross margin increases when the investments have been made is absolutely fundamentally intact. That's why we remain with our midterm aspirations for the cloud gross margin increases across all of the business models. And that's why, together with the continued operational discipline on, for example, resource additions for the remainder of the year, I believe we will be set up with the right cost base to deliver the margin expansion in 2018. And you will see this shining through already in Q4.

是的，沃爾特，謝謝你的提問。這確實是一個重要的。首先讓我說，我實際上對我在第三季度在整個組織中看到的紀律非常滿意，以絕對確保我們縮小我們在第一季度看到的收入和支出增長之間的差距半年。這完全符合我們對您的承諾。你在結果中看到我們的營業利潤率在第三季度下降了。它從年初至今的 1.2 個百分點的表現減速至僅 90 個基點。這讓我們面臨這樣一種情況，我相信，隨著持續嚴格的費用紀律以及比爾也提到的預期強勁的業務表現，我們現在有一個非常不錯的機會，可以在固定貨幣基礎上實現持平的利潤率Q4.對於 2018 年，絕對是我們將開始看到利潤率改善的承諾。尤其是在 2019 年和 20 年，它們會更加突出，但在 2018 年，我們肯定會看到改善，是的。就雲毛利率而言，你是對的，我們——正如我在評論中所分享的那樣，我們看到下降的程度不屬於我們最初的計劃。原因很簡單，我們看到我們提到的低線性預訂導致收入減少 1 到 2 個百分點。因此，收入是 - 與我們最初的預期相比存在小幅缺口。在投資方面，我們實際上已經決定加快對融合雲平台以及一些地域擴張的投資，在這些地域擴張中我們看到了機會，以確保我們比競爭對手更早進入市場。現在的雲快，為了搶占那些先機。這導致了2017年雲毛利率略低於預期的情況。但是，當進行投資時，所有這些投資都使我們的毛利率呈指數級增長，這一基本論點從根本上說是完好無損的。這就是為什麼我們仍然堅持我們對所有商業模式的雲毛利率增長的中期願望。這就是為什麼，連同持續的運營紀律，例如今年剩餘時間的資源增加，我相信我們將建立正確的成本基礎，以在 2018 年實現利潤率擴張。你會在第四季度看到這一點。

We'll now take the next questions from Gerardus Vos from Barclays.

我們現在將接受來自巴克萊銀行的 Gerardus Vos 的下一個問題。

Two, if I may. First of all, Bill, could you talk a bit about what gives you the kind of confidence that the cloud bookings will rebound strongly in Q4? And is there a risk, if this line is starting to follow more in line with what you've seen in the past with licenses, that Q1 could be more in line with what we've seen in kind of Q3? So we see that same kind of license fees now that you're coming back into that. My second question is for Luka. Hiring was around the 750 employees sequentially. Is this something we should forecast going forward, this kind of cost level increase?

兩個，如果可以的話。首先，比爾，你能談談是什麼讓你有信心雲預訂將在第四季度強勁反彈嗎？是否存在風險，如果這條線開始更符合您過去在許可證方面看到的情況，那麼第一季度可能更符合我們在第三季度看到的情況？因此，現在您又回來了，我們看到了同樣的許可費。我的第二個問題是給 Luka 的。按順序招聘大約 750 名員工。這是我們應該預測的未來，這種成本水平的增加嗎？

Well, thank you very much, Gerardus. I'll start off. First of all, let me be so crystal clear. I have total unequivocal, unwavering confidence in the cloud bookings for Q4. Let me give you the reason why. I had an offsite at my home in Heidelberg with all the executive board members. And the lowest number we could come up with based on the pipeline that comes out of the Digital Boardroom -- as you know, we run the whole company on S/4HANA. The lowest number we could come up with is a number that's in the 30s, okay? We couldn't come up with a lower one, we tried. So there's your Q4 confidence with an exclamation point. And I intend to reinforce that at the all-hands meeting, once we wrap up with you guys, and get the whole company fired up to make it happen. So it's going to be a really, really strong Q4 bookings number. Count on it. Write it down with a big crayon. It's in the bank.

好吧，非常感謝你，Gerardus。我要開始了。首先，讓我非常清楚。我對第四季度的雲預訂有著完全明確、堅定的信心。讓我告訴你原因。我在海德堡的家中與所有執行董事會成員有一個異地。我們可以根據來自數字會議室的管道得出的最低數字——如您所知，我們在 S/4HANA 上運行整個公司。我們能想到的最低數字是 30 多歲，好嗎？我們想不出一個更低的，我們試過了。因此，您對 Q4 的信心帶有感嘆號。我打算在全體會議上強調這一點，一旦我們與你們結束，並激發整個公司的熱情來實現它。所以這將是一個非常非常強勁的第四季度預訂數字。指望它。用大蠟筆寫下來。它在銀行。

On Q1, I'm especially inspired by S/4HANA and the public cloud. We're winning deals everywhere. We have the perfect alignment between the innovation and the field execution now. The brands like Shell coming on board. There's 2 other brands that we'll be announcing in the near future that are global brands of massive significance. And this is what we are waiting for. We are waiting for the big brands to say, okay, you guys got it. And now for all their subsidiaries, they're buying in on it. And we're going to take off like a rocket with S/4HANA in the public cloud. Now that was the key thing.

在第一季度，我特別受到 S/4HANA 和公共雲的啟發。我們到處都在贏得交易。我們現在在創新和現場執行之間實現了完美的結合。殼牌等品牌加入進來。我們將在不久的將來宣布另外 2 個品牌，它們是具有重大意義的全球品牌。這就是我們正在等待的。我們正在等待大品牌說，好吧，你們明白了。現在，對於他們所有的子公司，他們都在購買它。我們將在公共雲中使用 S/4HANA 像火箭一樣起飛。現在這是關鍵。

Now as it relates to some of the things you worried about in the past with SuccessFactors' execution, we really did need to change leaders. We made that happen. We have of fantastic guy running SuccessFactors now, who's a veteran of SAP. And the only soft spot we had there was in the United States. So given the fact that, that soft spot's hardening real fast in the United States, and we're winning everywhere else -- in fact, in Latin America, they [can't even] get their first deal -- I expect the growth trajectory in the line-of-business cloud, certainly the Business Network, and also the S/4HANA cloud to be extraordinarily strong going into Q1. So we're managing a pipeline on a rolling 4-quarter basis. If you look at these cloud pipelines, and you were the CEO of SAP, you'd be sleeping very good tonight.

現在，由於它涉及到您過去擔心 SuccessFactors 執行的一些事情，我們確實需要更換領導者。我們做到了。我們現在有一位很棒的人在運行 SuccessFactors，他是 SAP 的資深人士。我們唯一的軟肋是在美國。因此，考慮到這樣一個事實，即美國的軟弱點正在迅速硬化，而且我們在其他任何地方都取得了勝利——事實上，在拉丁美洲，他們 [甚至無法] 獲得他們的第一筆交易——我預計增長業務線雲的軌跡，當然是業務網絡，還有 S/4HANA 雲在進入第一季度時會非常強勁。因此，我們正在連續 4 個季度管理管道。如果您看看這些雲管道，並且您是 SAP 的首席執行官，那麼您今晚會睡得很好。

Yes. And just briefly on your question around the hiring. So yes, you can absolutely expect that also in Q4, our hiring performance will max at the figures that you have seen here for Q3. We have very, very selective hiring procedures in place, and they are exclusively geared towards those areas where we get an immediate value add, so clearly, in our cloud businesses, in R&D, as well as in sales and marketing. There is absolutely no hiring taking place in any back-office functions, as well as in the supporting functions outside of the administrative organization. And hence, this should give you a lot of comfort that we have OpEx under control as we look for the leverage from the strong top line that we expect in Q4.

是的。並簡要介紹一下您關於招聘的問題。所以是的，你絕對可以期待在第四季度，我們的招聘表現將達到你在這裡看到的第三季度的最高數字。我們有非常、非常有選擇性的招聘程序，它們專門針對那些我們可以立即獲得增值的領域，很明顯，在我們的雲業務、研發以及銷售和營銷方面。在任何後台職能以及行政組織之外的支持職能中絕對沒有招聘。因此，當我們從第四季度預期的強勁頂線中尋找槓桿作用時，這應該會讓您感到非常欣慰，因為我們已經控制了運營支出。

Going into 2018, of course, you have seen in 2017 that we have significant optionality. We will plan for our resource additions in line with the business environment that we see and with the business pick-up. But it's clear that we have made our, let's say, time frame of significant investments in the last 2 years. And you should definitely not expect similar levels of investment as we move into 2018.

進入 2018 年，當然，您已經在 2017 年看到我們有很大的選擇性。我們將根據我們看到的商業環境和業務回暖來規劃我們的資源增加。但很明顯，我們已經在過去兩年中製定了重大投資的時間框架。隨著我們進入 2018 年，您絕對不應該期待類似水平的投資。

We'll now take next question from Philip Winslow from Wells Fargo.

我們現在將接受來自富國銀行的 Philip Winslow 的下一個問題。

Question for you, Bill, and maybe Rob Enslin can chime in too. But you mentioned, obviously, a greater tie between the cloud aspects of your portfolio and S/4HANA migrations, and obviously, those were still strong this quarter, S/4HANA and just HANA in general. Are there any parts of the portfolio, in particular, that are attaching better than others or that are surprising you? Maybe just more color in sort of what you're seeing there will be great.

Bill，你的問題，也許 Rob Enslin 也可以插話。但你提到，很明顯，你的投資組合的雲方面與 S/4HANA 遷移之間有更大的聯繫，顯然，本季度這些仍然很強勁，S/4HANA 和一般的 HANA。投資組合中是否有任何部分特別比其他部分更吸引人或讓您感到驚訝？也許你所看到的只是更多的顏色會很棒。

Well, Phil, thank you for the question. Let me give you a real-time example. Met with a CEO of major conglomerate worldwide. This CEO is now switching from competitive products to S/4HANA. And they, in particular, informed me that the pricing that they're getting from the best of breed in CRM is up 60% year-over-year, that it's obvious that it's a pricing strategy, so they have a limited number of accounts. And because their portfolio is limited to one slice of the enterprise pie, the best way to increase revenue is to charge more. So what you're seeing right now is S/4HANA asserting its will in the enterprise and customers attaching CRM. So the Hybris CRM story is extremely strong. We own omni-channel e-commerce. If you look at anyone that's looking to go to direct consumer, that's running 1 billion or more in revenue, they're going to Hybris. And now, what you're seeing with S/4HANA is you're seeing sales, marketing and omni-channel e-commerce, in particular, attaching to the S/4HANA story. So I think we have a really, really impactful position now. And I think the best of breeds -- just like, Phil, you remember, in the early 2000s, when the big ones got good enough, the pricing pressure on the small ones increased because the customers were not going to pay these exorbitant increases, and then we start to gain share. Also aside from CRM, you're seeing this in HCM. Under the leadership of Rob Enslin, and he can comment more on it, he put Greg Tomb in the HCM job. We have an enormously innovative leadership team in SuccessFactors now. As we reinvented the user experience, especially using our partnership with Apple and the beautiful design on the mobile, we have made it so simple for the knowledge worker to do their job and so beautiful. And then finally, on the attach rates on Leonardo. You're seeing Digital Supply Chain growing in triple digits. So it's one thing to have a single view of the consumer and make a promise where you know her in every channel and every device. But it's another thing to fulfill in the content supply chain where you're getting the sourcing down right, you're building the product the right way and you're provisioning against the promise in real time. And only HANA and S/4HANA and our cloud assets, completely synchronized and integrated, can do this for customers in 25 distinctly different industries. So I really feel like we're just warming up.

好吧，菲爾，謝謝你的提問。讓我給你一個實時的例子。與全球主要企業集團的首席執行官會面。這位 CEO 現在正在從競爭產品轉向 S/4HANA。他們特別告訴我，他們從最佳 CRM 中獲得的定價同比增長 60%，很明顯這是一種定價策略，因此他們的賬戶數量有限.而且由於他們的產品組合僅限於企業蛋糕的一小部分，因此增加收入的最佳方式是收取更多費用。因此，您現在看到的是 S/4HANA 在附加 CRM 的企業和客戶中表明其意願。因此，Hybris CRM 的故事非常精彩。我們擁有全渠道電子商務。如果你看看任何想要直接接觸消費者的人，他們的收入在 10 億美元或更多，他們就會選擇 Hybris。現在，您在 S/4HANA 上看到的是銷售、營銷和全渠道電子商務，特別是附加到 S/4HANA 的故事。所以我認為我們現在擁有一個非常非常有影響力的職位。我認為最好的品種——就像，菲爾，你記得，在 2000 年代初期，當大品種變得足夠好時，小品種的定價壓力增加了，因為客戶不會支付這些過高的漲價，然後我們開始獲得份額。除了 CRM，您還會在 HCM 中看到這一點。在 Rob Enslin 的領導下（他可以對此發表更多評論），他讓 Greg Tomb 擔任 HCM 的職務。我們現在在 SuccessFactors 擁有一支極富創新精神的領導團隊。隨著我們重塑用戶體驗，尤其是利用我們與 Apple 的合作夥伴關係以及移動設備上的精美設計，我們讓知識工作者的工作變得如此簡單、如此美觀。最後，關於萊昂納多的附加率。您看到數字供應鏈以三位數的速度增長。因此，對消費者有一個單一的看法並承諾在每個渠道和每個設備上都了解她是一回事。但在內容供應鏈中要實現這一點是另一回事，您可以正確地進行採購，以正確的方式構建產品，並且可以根據承諾實時提供服務。只有完全同步和集成的 HANA 和 S/4HANA 以及我們的雲資產才能為 25 個截然不同的行業的客戶做到這一點。所以我真的覺得我們只是在熱身。

We'll now take the next question from Chandra Sriraman from MainFirst.

我們現在將接受來自 MainFirst 的 Chandra Sriraman 的下一個問題。

Just a couple, if I may. First question is -- I mean, I do understand your thoughts on the volatility in the bookings number. So how do we see this for 2018? Should we expect something closer to 30% growth for the year? Is that something that you internally model? And my second question is on the private cloud business. The gross margins dipped obviously, and you mentioned it's due to the prices of DRAM. So how do you see this in the medium term? Will the margins of this business still be at the mercy of the hardware prices? How should we look at it over the next 3 years?

如果可以的話，只有一對。第一個問題是——我的意思是，我理解你對預訂數量波動的看法。那麼我們如何看待 2018 年呢？我們是否應該期望今年的增長率接近 30%？這是您內部建模的東西嗎？我的第二個問題是關於私有云業務。毛利率下降明顯，你提到是因為DRAM的價格。那麼從中期來看，您如何看待這一點？該業務的利潤率是否仍將受硬件價格的支配？未來3年我們應該如何看待它？

Chandra, thank you very much for your question. Allow me please to start on the cloud growth, and then Luka will take the second part of the question on the private cloud. So when we built our vision for 2020, we built a solid plan that had the 30%-plus growth rate in the cloud built into it. We are not changing or moving off of that number. That is our number. And again, with the assets I spoke of earlier really ramping up quickly, that is the number you can use in your models as well. We're very, very confident. Luka?

錢德拉，非常感謝你的問題。請允許我從雲增長開始，然後 Luka 將回答關於私有云的問題的第二部分。因此，當我們制定 2020 年願景時，我們制定了一個可靠的計劃，其中內置了 30% 以上的雲增長率。我們不會改變或離開這個數字。那是我們的號碼。再說一遍，隨著我之前提到的資產迅速增加，這也是您可以在模型中使用的數量。我們非常非常有信心。盧卡？

Yes, I can certainly confirm that, knowing my spreadsheets. There's a lot we put in here. But -- and of course, we're not using spreadsheets. My S/4HANA system, excuse me. But in general, on the gross margin, first of all, yes, this is a short-term impact. We believe there has been a short-term contraction of available capacity that has resulted in this cost spike. And we definitely plan for this to dissipate until the end of the year and that we enter 2018 with more normal cost projections again, which again, help us for our Infrastructure-as-a-Service business with the substantial expectation for further gross margin increases as we have demonstrated it over the course of last 2, 3 years. Bernd Leukert, who is with us on the call, and his team who is running the HEC business are extremely focused on this. Actually the cost of operating systems has come down tremendously through the course of 2017. And this is setting a great basis of operational excellence, together with our optionality against the usage of hyperscale cloud providers as part of our offering to deliver further gross margin expansions. Bernd, any further insights you wish to provide? But I am very bullish around HANA Enterprise Cloud and the IaaS margin increases.

是的，我當然可以確認這一點，因為我知道我的電子表格。我們在這裡放了很多東西。但是——當然，我們沒有使用電子表格。我的 S/4HANA 系統，不好意思。但總的來說，在毛利率上，首先，是的，這是一個短期的影響。我們認為，可用容量的短期收縮導致了成本飆升。我們明確計劃在今年年底之前將這種情況消散，並且我們將再次以更正常的成本預測進入 2018 年，這再次幫助我們的基礎設施即服務業務實現毛利率進一步增長的巨大預期正如我們在過去 2、3 年中所展示的那樣。與我們一起通話的 Bernd Leukert 和他負責 HEC 業務的團隊非常專注於此。實際上，操作系統的成本在 2017 年已經大幅下降。這為卓越運營奠定了良好的基礎，同時我們可以選擇不使用超大規模雲提供商作為我們產品的一部分，以進一步擴大毛利率。Bernd，您想提供任何進一步的見解嗎？但我非常看好 HANA 企業雲和 IaaS 利潤率的增加。

No, Luka, I just can confirm what you said. I mean, the growth in the private cloud continues as planned. It's a fast-growing business. We are even, according to our internal cost of operations, ahead of our plan year-to-date. Yes, we had this onetime dip with some extraordinary prices for half year, which we had to pay. But we got signals from our supplier that this was a onetime effect. So in that aspect, there should be no concerns at all. We will drive that growth and we will drive it to even bigger profitability towards 2018.

不，盧卡，我只能確認你說的話。我的意思是，私有云的增長繼續按計劃進行。這是一項快速發展的業務。根據我們的內部運營成本，我們甚至提前完成了年初至今的計劃。是的，我們經歷了半年的一次性價格下跌，但我們不得不付出代價。但是我們從我們的供應商那裡得到了信號，表明這是一次性的。所以在這方面，根本不應該有任何顧慮。我們將推動這種增長，我們將推動它在 2018 年實現更大的盈利能力。

We'll now take the next question from Adam Wood from Morgan Stanley.

我們現在將接受來自摩根士丹利的 Adam Wood 的下一個問題。

I've also got 2, please. Just first of all, coming back to the cloud growth and that sustainable growth out to 2020. Could you maybe just dig in a little bit on the main drivers of that? Is it that you think that this is going to be products like Ariba and Concur selling better into the SAP installed base as we have the converged platform on HANA and we get a better integration of them? Or is it more going to be some of the smaller products today, S/4HANA public cloud, Hybris, et cetera, that scale? Any building blocks you can give to justify that 30% will be really helpful on the product side. And then maybe just coming onto the margins on the cloud. This is probably a little bit more for Luka. Is there any way you can help us on the scale of the cost that you're bearing this year in terms of running dual infrastructure and so on, and how those fall away? Because clearly there is a big gap for you, below 60% on the gross margins versus peers, about 80%. As those fall away, can we expect those to ramp up quite quickly as we get the benefits of the investment and the leverage?

我也有2個，拜託。首先，回到雲增長和到 2020 年的可持續增長。您能否深入了解一下其中的主要驅動因素？您是否認為像 Ariba 和 Concur 這樣的產品會更好地銷售到 SAP 安裝基礎中，因為我們在 HANA 上擁有融合平台並且我們可以更好地集成它們？還是今天的一些更小的產品，S/4HANA 公共雲，Hybris 等等，那麼規模？您可以提供的任何構建塊來證明 30% 對產品方面確實有幫助。然後也許只是進入雲的邊緣。這對盧卡來說可能有點多。你有什麼辦法可以幫助我們了解你今年在運行雙重基礎設施等方面所承擔的成本規模，以及這些成本是如何減少的？因為顯然你們之間存在很大差距，毛利率低於 60%，而同行約為 80%。隨著這些下降，我們能否期望隨著我們獲得投資和槓桿的收益而迅速增加？

So maybe I'll go, Adam, and [throw that here] just on the confidence we have in our cloud business. The first thing I would tell you is that what we see with S/4 public cloud and the combination of our communication around the Digital Core is that customers are really looking for a company [to answer] where they want to go with digital. And they are clearly looking to SAP to provide that. And what we've done with the integration, the integration between the lines of business, we see a unique opportunity to elevate that. When you add the machine learning capability with Leonardo on top of that, all of a sudden you start to see some tremendous value that they had not been able to see before. And I believe we've answered the complex question of how do we analyze data that doesn't exist inside SAP's organization and bringing it in. So having said that, overall from a digital point of view, I think we have by far the best story in the market, the only one that actually will deliver the value that these customers are expecting. We're seeing that with transformation deals coming into the pipeline. And then secondly, when I look at where we are with SuccessFactors, the new UI, the 41 countries with EC payroll, the team we have in place right now, I see a huge upside on SuccessFactors. Fieldglass and Concur is simply just growth everywhere. It's a matter of actually articulating that growth and going after that growth. And then the combination of what we're doing with Ariba, Fieldglass and Concur in spend management, you will see we will change the game around in terms of how people look at SAP. Lastly, Hybris, and I came -- I just came from the Hybris conference in Barcelona, and there's no doubt in my mind now, together with the acquisition of Gigya, that we will own the golden customer record, which means we will control the front office. And with that, we will give end-to-end Digital Supply Chain that these customers [want for] transformation story. So I think we have never ever been in a situation where we can honestly deliver on the full digital piece that customers want. And the last piece is SAP Cloud Platform is really changing the game when it comes to Platform-as-a-Service and connecting the dots in this cloud services world. And we've seen tremendous uptick in that as well. So I think we're in the best shape we've ever been in the cloud. I think the SAP employees understand it. I think our customers get it now. And I think 2018 is going to be a crazy good year for SAP.

所以也許我會去，亞當，並且 [把它扔在這裡] 只是因為我們對我們的雲業務有信心。我要告訴你的第一件事是，我們看到的 S/4 公共雲以及我們圍繞數字核心的溝通組合是，客戶真的在尋找一家公司 [to answer] 他們想要數字化。他們顯然希望 SAP 能夠提供這一點。我們在整合方面所做的工作，業務線之間的整合，我們看到了一個獨特的機會來提升它。當你在 Leonardo 的基礎上添加機器學習能力時，你會突然開始看到他們以前看不到的一些巨大價值。我相信我們已經回答了一個複雜的問題，即我們如何分析 SAP 組織內部不存在的數據並將其引入。因此，話雖如此，總體而言，從數字的角度來看，我認為我們擁有迄今為止市場上最好的故事，也是唯一能夠真正提供這些客戶所期望的價值的故事。隨著轉型交易的進行，我們看到了這一點。其次，當我查看 SuccessFactors、新 UI、41 個擁有 EC 工資單的國家以及我們目前擁有的團隊時，我看到了 SuccessFactors 的巨大優勢。Fieldglass 和 Concur 簡直就是無處不在的增長。這是一個實際闡明這種增長並追求這種增長的問題。然後結合我們在支出管理方面與 Ariba、Fieldglass 和 Concur 所做的工作，你會發現我們將改變人們對 SAP 的看法。最後，Hybris 和我來了——我剛剛參加了在巴塞羅那舉行的 Hybris 會議，現在我堅信，隨著對 Gigya 的收購，我們將擁有黃金客戶記錄，這意味著我們將控制前台。有了這個，我們將提供端到端的數字供應鏈，這些客戶 [want for] 轉型故事。所以我認為我們從來沒有遇到過可以誠實地交付客戶想要的完整數字產品的情況。最後一點是 SAP Cloud Platform 在平台即服務和連接雲服務世界中的點點滴滴方面真正改變了遊戲規則。我們也看到了巨大的增長。所以我認為我們處於雲中有史以來最好的狀態。我認為 SAP 員工明白這一點。我想我們的客戶現在明白了。我認為 2018 年對 SAP 來說將是瘋狂的好年頭。

And maybe in terms of building the staircase of the different expense impacts into the gross margin improvement potential in the cloud, Adam. First of all, the pure duplicate infrastructure costs that we currently have are somewhere in the mid-double-digit million euro range on a per annum basis. On top of that, you have then -- once you have the converged infrastructure in place, a much better ability to automate certain tasks and put them under harmonized procedures, which will help you especially on the personnel expense side of the house in terms of cloud delivery operations. At the moment, close to 2/3, actually, of our expenses in cloud delivery are human costs. And once you have the converged infrastructure, you can put this into much more efficient shared service models than running it for every one of our LoBs separately. So this is probably another similar level of impact. And the further effects -- [upside] of those, let's say, low triple digits that you get through those measures are then the scale benefits as we further increase the size of our cloud business, and then benefit from a better leverage of customer additions to our infrastructure. That's kind of the high-level improvement potentials that we have short term with the duplication, which will be running its course next year, and then with the ancillary automation as well as the scale benefits that we can benefit from, especially in the years 2019 and '20.

也許在構建不同費用影響的階梯方面，Adam 可能會影響雲中的毛利率提高潛力。首先，我們目前擁有的純重複基礎設施成本每年大約在兩位數的百萬歐元範圍內。最重要的是，一旦融合基礎架構到位，您就可以更好地自動化某些任務並將它們置於協調程序之下，這將有助於您，尤其是在人員開支方面雲交付操作。目前，我們在雲交付方面的支出實際上有近 2/3 是人力成本。一旦您擁有了融合的基礎架構，您就可以將其放入更高效的共享服務模型中，而不是分別為我們的每個 LoB 運行它。所以這可能是另一個類似級別的影響。進一步的影響——比方說，通過這些措施獲得的低三位數是規模效益，因為我們進一步增加了我們的雲業務規模，然後從更好地利用客戶增加中獲益到我們的基礎設施。這是我們短期內具有的高水平改進潛力，複製將在明年運行，然後是輔助自動化以及我們可以從中受益的規模效益，尤其是在 2019 年和'20。

The next question comes from Michael Briest from UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Michael Briest。

Bernd, maybe one for you, in terms of the migration of SuccessFactors to HANA. Can you say what proportion of the SuccessFactors customers today are running on the new platform? I think it was available from October 2016. And then when do you expect that migration to be completed? I think it was initially expected to be the end of this year, but it's now sometime in 2018. And then Luka, one of the targets on the journey to 2020 was the -- in 2018, licenses would be smaller than cloud. Currencies have bounced around. And I think, frankly, for most of us, you've done a better job on licenses than maybe we expected in 2015. Are you still happy with that target? Do you still think that licenses should start to decline? Or do you now have a more positive view?

就 SuccessFactors 到 HANA 的遷移而言，Bernd 可能適合您。您能說出今天有多少 SuccessFactors 客戶在新平台上運行嗎？我認為它從 2016 年 10 月開始可用。然後您預計該遷移何時完成？我認為最初預計是今年年底，但現在是 2018 年的某個時候。然後 Luka，到 2020 年的目標之一是——在 2018 年，許可證將小於雲。貨幣已經反彈。我認為，坦率地說，對於我們大多數人來說，你們在許可證方面做得比我們在 2015 年預期的要好。你對那個目標還滿意嗎？你仍然認為許可證應該開始下降嗎？或者你現在有更積極的看法？

Yes, this so is -- go ahead, (inaudible), the first questions is of...

是的，這是 - 繼續，（聽不清），第一個問題是......

I'll just -- so the SuccessFactors, Michael, we are 1/3 of the way through the SuccessFactors conversion. All new customers go on to the HANA platform. They get all of the latest crazy good UI with it, what we've been able to do there. And we will be complete with that movement by September of 2018.

我只是 - 所以 SuccessFactors，邁克爾，我們已經完成了 SuccessFactors 轉換的 1/3。所有新客戶都會繼續使用 HANA 平台。他們用它獲得了所有最新的瘋狂的好用戶界面，這是我們在那裡能夠做到的。我們將在 2018 年 9 月完成這項運動。

Yes, on the question around license being overtaken by cloud, you're absolutely correct. We've been doing very well in licenses. Of course, we will give you an exact guidance outlay when we enter the earnings for Q4 and then give out the guidance for 2018. But the thesis that cloud will actually surpass licenses in 2018 is still intact. So you can expect this to happen next year.

是的，關於許可被雲取代的問題，你是絕對正確的。我們在許可證方面一直做得很好。當然，當我們進入第四季度的收益時，我們會給你一個準確的指導支出，然後給出 2018 年的指導。但云實際上將在 2018 年超過許可證的論點仍然完好無損。所以你可以預期這會在明年發生。

The next question comes from Alex Tout from Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Alex Tout。

So maybe one for Luka. Based on what was just said about the state of the migration of SuccessFactors, it doesn't sound like we'll be off the -- out of the dual-running scenario until something like the third quarter of next year. So I mean, are we unlikely to see much recovery in the cloud margin before that point, and therefore, not much overall operating margin expansion until that point? And then just on the revenue growth side. Within the cloud, we had 38% cloud bookings growth in the first half. Cloud bookings growth was also strong in the second half of last year. But we've seen revenue growth decelerating in the cloud business. Can you just talk about that disconnect between bookings and revenue growth? And why and when that should normalize?

所以也許是給盧卡的。根據剛才所說的關於 SuccessFactors 遷移狀態的內容，聽起來我們不會脫離雙運行場景，直到明年第三季度。所以我的意思是，我們是否不太可能在那之前看到雲利潤率有很大的複蘇，因此，在那之前整體營業利潤率不會有太大的增長？然後就在收入增長方面。在雲中，上半年我們的雲預訂量增長了 38%。去年下半年雲預訂增長也很強勁。但我們已經看到雲業務的收入增長放緩。你能談談預訂和收入增長之間的脫節嗎？為什麼以及何時應該正常化？

Yes. Let me maybe cover that because it's a more technical question on the revenue side as well. The main reason is that you need to remember that our new cloud bookings don't include everything that drives the cloud revenue growth. They don't encompass the network transactional based -- volume-based billings that are purely pay as you go. And while this is a very, very healthy business at very high margins, it indeed has, not only this year, but also last year, slightly trailed on the growth on the new cloud bookings as well as the user-based subscription revenues that we are driving. And that's the key reason why you see these gaps, so to say, between the new cloud bookings growth and the revenue growth.

是的。讓我來談談，因為這也是收入方面的一個更技術性的問題。主要原因是您需要記住，我們新的雲預訂不包括推動雲收入增長的一切。它們不包含基於網絡交易的——基於數量的純按需付費的計費。雖然這是一項利潤率非常高的非常非常健康的業務，但它確實不僅在今年而且在去年都略微落後於新雲預訂的增長以及我們基於用戶的訂閱收入正在開車。這就是為什麼你看到這些差距的關鍵原因，可以說，在新的雲預訂增長和收入增長之間。

On 2018 and the plans there. Look, it was clear for us from quite some time that parts of our portfolio, especially Ariba, would take until the end of 2018 to be transformed. And in terms of the overarching assumption for 2018, we've also been clear that the progression, both on cloud gross margins as well as on the total operating margin side, will be there, will be visible. But it will be further and more accentuated in 2019 and 2020, when those migrations have completely taken place. So you should not, when you build the staircase from 2017 to 2020, assume a linear progression. You should assume that we are coming close to or hitting the constant currency margin flatline in Q4. Then you should expect to see a moderate expansion in 2018, and then a much more pronounced expansion in '19 and '20. And as you said, rightfully, the key lever for that is the increased cloud efficiency that we will have gotten once the 2018 migrations have completely taken place.

2018 年和那裡的計劃。看，很長一段時間以來，我們很清楚我們的部分產品組合，尤其是 Ariba，要到 2018 年底才能完成轉型。就 2018 年的總體假設而言，我們也很清楚，雲計算毛利率和總營業利潤率方面的進展將是顯而易見的。但在 2019 年和 2020 年，當這些遷移完全發生時，這種情況將進一步加劇。因此，當您從 2017 年到 2020 年建造樓梯時，您不應該假設是線性進展。您應該假設我們在第四季度接近或達到恆定的貨幣利潤率持平線。那麼你應該會在 2018 年看到適度擴張，然後在 19 和 20 年出現更加明顯的擴張。正如您所說，正確的是，關鍵槓桿是雲效率的提高，一旦 2018 年的遷移完全發生，我們將獲得這種效率。

Next question comes from John King from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

下一個問題來自美銀美林的 John King。

Actually, it was a follow up on something just mentioned actually, Luka, maybe more fundamentally about the book-to-bill period that you are seeing in the cloud. I appreciate there's also the fact that Ariba isn't in the bookings number. But if you think about the deals, I guess, overall, getting larger, maybe more Q4 weighted, more platform based, does that potentially also lead you to seeing a greater book-to-bill period in those bookings? Just talk about how might look and how the deployments are actually running for some of those larger cloud wins that you had. And then the second one, perhaps for Rob. The Infrastructure-as-a-Service revenue I think was a little bit -- didn't really grow quarter-on-quarter, which I think is, I suppose, surprising given how strong the licenses have been, so perhaps just talk about whether there's any one-off issues there, or why the Infrastructure-as-a-Service wasn't growing a lot quarter-on-quarter.

事實上，這是對剛才提到的事情的跟進，盧卡，也許更根本的是你在雲中看到的訂單到賬單週期。我很欣賞 Ariba 不在預訂編號中這一事實。但如果你考慮這些交易，我想，總的來說，交易規模越來越大，可能更多的 Q4 加權，更多基於平台，這是否也可能導致你在這些預訂中看到更長的預訂到賬單期？只是談談您擁有的一些更大的雲勝利的外觀和部署實際運行情況。然後是第二個，也許是給 Rob 的。我認為基礎設施即服務的收入有點——並沒有真正實現季度環比增長，我認為考慮到許可證的強大程度，我認為這是令人驚訝的，所以也許只是談談那裡是否存在任何一次性問題，或者為什麼基礎設施即服務沒有按季度增長很多。

Yes, maybe on the first question. You cannot really infer a big change here because, first of all, the business models are -- while they are vastly different, they actually also have a much different profile in terms of how you build up the billing. Like on the user-based business models around SuccessFactors, you typically have an annual upfront billing that happens, more or less, right after you sign up the customer. Whereas in businesses like Ariba or also in Fieldglass, you have a much more constant billing cycle that is going on. So if you have changes, so to say, between those different business lines -- the same will be true for SAP Cloud Platform, for example, where we're also going to volume-based billing based on metering -- you will have much more velocity in the billing cycles on smaller volumes, basically. And that will, to the same extent, build up a higher volume machine as we add more high-volume deals, so to say, as part of these attached plays. So I don't think that this will change fundamentally the behavior in terms of the book-to-bill performance, but of course all of this is really highly dependent on those different solution performances, which can vary from a quarter to a quarter. So I wouldn't feel comfortable making here an exact prediction at this point in time.

是的，也許是關於第一個問題。你不能在這裡真正推斷出一個大的變化，因為首先，商業模式是——雖然它們有很大的不同，但實際上它們在你如何建立賬單方面也有很大不同的概況。與圍繞 SuccessFactors 的基於用戶的業務模型一樣，您通常會或多或少地在與客戶簽約後立即進行年度預付費用。而在像 Ariba 或 Fieldglass 這樣的企業中，您有一個更加穩定的計費周期。因此，如果您在這些不同的業務線之間發生變化——例如，SAP Cloud Platform 也是如此，我們也將基於計量進行基於數量的計費——您將有很多基本上，較小數量的計費周期速度更快。這將在同樣程度上建立一個更大的機器，因為我們添加了更多的大批量交易，可以說，作為這些附加遊戲的一部分。因此，我認為這不會從根本上改變訂單到賬單性能方面的行為，但當然所有這些實際上都高度依賴於那些不同的解決方案性能，這些性能可能從四分之一到四分之一不等。所以我不願意在這個時間點做出準確的預測。

Question on Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Rob?

關於基礎設施即服務的問題，Rob？

Yes, sure. I'm -- I mean, Infrastructure-as-a-Service is pretty easy to answer. The linearity was a little off. I mean, you're going to see it with some of these big transformation deals. We will have a big Q4 when it comes to Infrastructure-as-a-Service. So a little lumpy in Q3, big Q4, and still remains an amazingly strong business as customers want to run the full SAP S/4 portfolio.

是的，當然。我是——我的意思是，基礎設施即服務很容易回答。線性有點偏離。我的意思是，你會在其中一些大型轉型交易中看到它。在基礎設施即服務方面，我們將迎來一個重要的第四季度。所以在第三季度有點起伏，第四季度很大，但仍然是一個非常強大的業務，因為客戶希望運行完整的 SAP S/4 產品組合。

Two more questions, please.

請再問兩個問題。

We'll take the next question from Pat Walravens from JMP Securities.

我們將從 JMP Securities 的 Pat Walravens 那裡回答下一個問題。

Bill, I would love to drill down a little more on your thoughts about cloud consolidation. You mentioned consolidation in the enterprise due in part to price, and we've been hearing that, too. But does that mean that the best-of-breed cloud companies get acquired? And on that same note, you mentioned a bunch of companies I used to cover, PeopleSoft, IQ, JDA, Manugistics. And they all got bought, but it took a long time. It took like 8 or 10 years. So just love to hear if we see M&A, and how long you think it takes.

Bill，我很樂意深入了解您對雲整合的看法。您提到企業的合併部分是由於價格，我們也一直在聽。但這是否意味著同類最佳的雲公司會被收購？同樣，您提到了我曾經報導過的許多公司，PeopleSoft、IQ、JDA、Manugistics。他們都被買了，但是花了很長時間。這花了大約 8 或 10 年的時間。所以很想听聽我們是否看到併購，以及您認為需要多長時間。

Yes, Pat, thank you for the question. And as you rightfully point out, it took a long time, but it was a painful ride down for all those companies, wasn't it? If you look at the height of their market cap, the spiral down was quite long and quite painful. And the purchase price of those companies was probably about 90% less than their high point on the market cap, after they took a beating in the marketplace. So what I think is going to happen is, nobody in their right mind would buy these companies at their current market cap. So it's going to be a hand-to-hand combat for a while. And as their price points start to decline, and S/4HANA asserts its will in the enterprise and these attached deals become more and more the future for CEOs -- like I met with the CEOs, and they tell me, "Why are we even having this debate? Why would we go with a different HCM system? Why would we go with a different CRM system? If you guys can actually do it and you can help me run simple and take a lot of cost out of the equation, why -- what am I missing here?" And I say, "Well, what you're missing here is you have independent sales processes going on across lines of business in the company, and that's why you have so many systems and so much complexity. And if you want to pull one string today to take like 15% cost out of the equation, just pull the spend management and we'll reel in Ariba, Concur and Fieldglass. And by the way, I could attach Fieldglass to your HCM, and now you're managing the total workforce because your workforce is 40% third-party temporary labor. You think you should keep control of that or just let it run wild?" So once you have the more complete conversation at the top of the house, it's quite clear that this will be the prevailing strategy. And since we operate well at high altitudes here, and we now have a well-trained, well-led cloud and network force, including S/4HANA in the cloud, which I think is going to be the ultimate force in the enterprise, I just don't see the future for those companies as bright as their past. Now -- and I also underscore that with, I don't see anybody rolling in there with the bankers and a big check because what are you buying? You're buying the problems I just gave you, and you're buying at an extraordinary high valuation. So we won't be showing up for those meetings, believe me.

是的，帕特，謝謝你的提問。正如你正確指出的那樣，這花了很長時間，但對所有這些公司來說都是痛苦的，不是嗎？如果你看看他們市值的高度，就會發現螺旋式下跌的過程相當漫長，而且非常痛苦。在市場遭受重創之後，這些公司的收購價格可能比其市值高點低 90% 左右。所以我認為會發生的是，沒有人會以他們目前的市值購買這些公司。因此，這將是一段時間的肉搏戰。隨著它們的價格點開始下降，S/4HANA 表明它在企業中的意願，這些附加交易越來越成為 CEO 的未來——就像我與 CEO 會面時，他們告訴我，“為什麼我們甚至有這場辯論嗎？為什麼我們要使用不同的 HCM 系統？我們為什麼要使用不同的 CRM 系統？如果你們真的可以做到，並且可以幫助我簡單地運行並從等式中減少很多成本，為什麼——我在這裡錯過了什麼？”我說，“好吧，你在這裡錯過的是你在公司的各個業務線中都有獨立的銷售流程，這就是為什麼您擁有如此多的系統和如此復雜的原因。如果你今天想拉一根繩子從等式中減少大約 15% 的成本，只需拉動支出管理，我們就會捲入 Ariba、Concur 和 Fieldglass。順便說一句，我可以將 Fieldglass 附加到您的 HCM，現在您正在管理整個勞動力，因為您的勞動力有 40% 是第三方臨時工。你認為你應該控制它還是讓它瘋狂？”所以一旦你在房子的最高層進行了更完整的對話，很明顯這將成為主流策略。由於我們在這裡的高海拔運作良好，我們現在擁有訓練有素、領導良好的雲和網絡力量，包括雲中的 S/4HANA，我認為這將成為企業中的終極力量，我只是看不到這些公司的未來像他們的過去一樣光明。現在——我還強調了這一點，我沒有看到任何人和銀行家一起進來，拿著一張大支票，因為你在買什麼？你正在購買我剛剛給你的問題，而且你正在以非常高的估值購買。所以我們不會出現在那些會議上，相信我。

Thank you. So let's take the last question, please.

謝謝。請讓我們回答最後一個問題。

We'll take the last question from Ross MacMillan from RBC Capital Markets.

我們將接受來自 RBC 資本市場的 Ross MacMillan 的最後一個問題。

Actually, Bill, I wanted to touch on S/4HANA public cloud. You've clearly shown your enthusiasm on that product. You highlighted Shell and other big brands to come. So I guess I'm just curious, you had a strategy this year of ensuring customer success, which I think has meant you've had a somewhat limited go-to-market action. Can you just talk about when you sort of fully unleash that product in the market more aggressively? And how we should think about the potential for that business to grow over the next 2 or 3 years?

事實上，Bill，我想談談 S/4HANA 公共雲。您已經清楚地表明了對該產品的熱情。你強調了殼牌和其他即將到來的大品牌。所以我想我只是好奇，你今年有一個確保客戶成功的戰略，我認為這意味著你的上市行動有限。你能談談你什麼時候更積極地在市場上充分釋放該產品嗎？我們應該如何考慮該業務在未來 2 或 3 年內的增長潛力？

Ross, you've read the situation perfectly. We had a very controlled environment for the product. We wanted to make sure that we had Net Promoter Scores that were like off the charts, that the customers were all happy, that every single one of them was referenceable. And since we've now achieved that goal and we're into triple-digit customers in the public multi-tenant cloud and the functionality and the capabilities there, and you guys have given us permission to basically run the company to be the ultimate cloud company powered by HANA. What I mean by that is, there's no artificial reason inside of SAP where anyone is just going for an on-premise sale. If the customer wants to rent something in the public multi-tenant cloud and that's in their interest, you guys know how the math works. You wait a little longer for your money, but it's much more recurring and predictable. And we both love that business model. So we're going for it with everything we have. So when will you see major scale? 2018, because we'll be in a new operating cycle. We'll tie everything into the guidance story. But in terms of the product, it's got the capabilities it needs, it has the referenceable customers. The big ones now are falling right into place, and I believe that's going to be a runaway growth story.

羅斯，你已經完全了解情況了。我們為產品提供了一個非常受控的環境。我們想確保我們的淨推薦值超出圖表，客戶都滿意，每個人都可以參考。由於我們現在已經實現了這個目標，並且我們在公共多租戶雲中擁有三位數的客戶以及那裡的功能和能力，你們已經允許我們基本上將公司運營為終極雲由 HANA 提供支持的公司。我的意思是，在 SAP 內部沒有人為的理由讓任何人都只是為了內部銷售。如果客戶想在公共多租戶雲中租用一些東西並且這符合他們的利益，你們知道數學是如何運作的。您等待您的錢的時間稍長，但它的重複性和可預測性要高得多。我們都喜歡這種商業模式。因此，我們將全力以赴。那麼你什麼時候會看到大規模？2018 年，因為我們將進入一個新的運營週期。我們會將所有內容都融入到指導故事中。但就產品而言，它具備所需的功能，擁有可參考的客戶。大公司現在正在就位，我相信這將是一個失控的增長故事。

And I also believe strongly that the line-of-business cloud with HCM and CRM, and the Business Network story that we've been telling now and getting very good at, with the leadership of Mr. Robert Enslin and the field that we're putting in front of our customers is going to really start multiplying in full force. And that's what's going on. I'm very confident in the S/4HANA public multi-tenant cloud offering. And when I look at the competitive brands out there, just look at how old those architectures are. Just look at how old those ideas are. Just look at the sales force that's selling them and the cultural conflict that you have between the bigger side of those companies and the smaller side of those companies. So I love where we're at right now.

我也堅信，在 Robert Enslin 先生的領導下，我們一直在講述並擅長的業務線雲與 HCM 和 CRM，以及我們一直在講述的業務網絡故事以及我們的領域。重新呈現在我們的客戶面前將真正開始全面成倍增長。這就是正在發生的事情。我對 S/4HANA 公共多租戶雲產品非常有信心。當我查看那裡的競爭品牌時，只要看看這些架構有多舊。看看這些想法有多古老。只要看看銷售它們的銷售人員，以及這些公司的大公司和小公司之間的文化衝突。所以我喜歡我們現在所處的位置。

Thank you very much. This concludes the SAP Q3 earnings call for today. Thank you all for joining, and goodbye.

非常感謝。今天的 SAP 第三季度財報電話會議到此結束。謝謝大家的加入，再見。

Thanks, everybody.

謝謝大家。

Thank you.

謝謝。