Tuesday 7th January, 2014

Just one year after SAP's aquisition of Ariba for more than $4billion two of the top bosses, including former Ariba CEO Bob Calderoni, have decided to leave, according to a report by Spend Matters. SAP comments that; "After successfully leading the transition of Ariba into SAP, Bob Calderoni has taken the decision to leave SAP."

The news was confirmed by the company in a statement, and commented; "We have benefitted greatly from Bob’s vision in building SAP’s leadership in the cloud, and we are grateful that Bob will remain as a strategic advisor to the Managing Board." He's joined by SAP Ariba President Kevin Costello who has also made the decision to leave the business software giant. 

The opinion at Spend Matters is that their departure "suggests a short earn-out period for the two Ariba executives following the turnaround of Ariba and subsequent sale to SAP." As to how much they'll be missed, that remains to be seen, but 2013 was a strong year for the business. It's likely that there will continue to be further rumblings at the top in the coming days and weeks. "

In an interesting move for the potential direction of the company, Calderoni will be replaced by Shawn Price as President Global Cloud & Line of Business. Price joined SAP a year ago, running SuccessFactors and before that was President of cloud start-up Zuora.