Beyond the Box: A Three-Way Partnership for the Intelligent Enterprise

As an IT leader, you know your business critical applications are only as reliable as the weakest link. At SUSE, we recognize you are dependent on the power of a strong supplier ecosystem. It’s about building alliances that deliver trusted, transformative value. This is especially true for the long-lasting collaboration between SAP, Intel and SUSE— ‌a partnership that has been instrumental in shaping the enterprise computing landscape for decades.

Recently, at SAP SAPPHIRE, I had the pleasure of discussing how this alliance is evolving with Jan Krueger from Intel and my colleague, Diego Akechi. The conversation highlighted the critical point that we all believe in a shared responsibility to our mutual customers.

Our Role: Enabling the Intelligent Enterprise

For IT leaders, the key to a successful digital transformation is not just about adopting new hardware and software; it’s about ensuring those technologies are integrated into a secure, reliable, and flexible infrastructure. This is where SUSE comes in. Our enterprise-ready, open source operating system provides the foundation that allows Intel’s cutting-edge hardware to run SAP’s powerful applications with maximum performance, reliability, and security. We are the fabric that stitches this three-way partnership together.

Our shared mission is to ensure you get the maximum business return out of your technology investments. As I mentioned during our conversation, “There’s so much collaboration that goes on with the Intel and SAP folks that it’s not really a surprise to me that we get to a really good solution. We have the same mission: we want to get the best out of the hardware, out of the software, and deliver the best solution for the customer. We’re all in it for the same thing.”

The Zero-Trust Imperative

One of the most pressing challenges for IT leaders today is cybersecurity, particularly as mission-critical workloads migrate to the cloud. We are tackling this head-on with Intel by focusing on confidential computing. Our joint work is designed to encrypt “data in use,” protecting it not just at the application level but also at the underlying system level. This is a crucial component of a “zero trust infrastructure,” a security framework that assumes no one‌ — ‌inside or outside the network‌ — ‌can be trusted without verification.

The Power of Choice and a Strategic Partner

IT leaders need flexibility and choice to adapt to changing business needs. They cannot afford to be locked into a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution. This is where SUSE’s value proposition truly resonates. We believe in providing open, interoperable solutions that let you choose the best platform and location for your specific business needs, whether it’s on premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid model.

As my colleague, Diego Akechi, puts it, “Customers are looking for choice, and they need a partner that can support all the options. That’s exactly what SUSE does. We want to be an enterprise’s strategic partner and give them the confidence that when they make an investment in a mission-critical platform, they have a trusted partner that will be with them for the long haul.”

Ultimately, the partnership between SUSE, Intel, and SAP is about more than just technology‌ — ‌it’s about confidence. It’s about giving IT leaders the peace of mind that comes from knowing their mission-critical systems are built on a foundation of reliability, security, and open innovation. We are committed to helping you navigate the complexities of digital transformation and unlock new levels of performance and value.

Watch the interview here.