SAP’s Shareholders Hand Obermann a Mandate as Orlando Tests the Cloud Trade-Off

René Obermann joins SAP supervisory board with 99% vote. SAP to offer AI tools to on-premise customers but only with cloud migration commitment. Stock down 44% from high despite solid cloud revenue.

René Obermann secured his seat on SAP’s supervisory board with more than 99 percent of the votes at the virtual annual general meeting on May 5, clearing the final hurdle in a succession saga that had dragged on for two years. The former Deutsche Telekom chief will eventually take the chairman’s gavel in 2027, but first he must watch from the sidelines as the software giant navigates what could be its most consequential week in Orlando.

Shareholders also approved the dividend for fiscal 2025 — paid out on May 8 with an ex-dividend date of May 5 — and renewed the board’s authority to issue convertible and warrant bonds, as well as a charter amendment allowing electronic shares. The meeting passed without drama, but the real action shifts to the Orange County Convention Center on Monday, where SAP opens its annual Sapphire & ASUG conference.

The cloud carrot with an on-premise string

SAP is expected to announce this week that it will open its artificial intelligence portfolio to customers still running ECC, its legacy on-premise platform for finance, sales and HR. The move sounds like a peace offering, but it comes with a catch: to access the AI tools, customers must simultaneously commit to the cloud through the “Rise with SAP” migration package. The core assistant Joule remains off-limits to on-premise users, and the agent-to-agent protocol is also excluded from local installations.

The strategy reflects a delicate balancing act. SAP has long used exclusive AI features as a lever to push holdout customers into the cloud, but that approach is buckling under pressure from startups such as Anthropic, which offer automation solutions that can bypass SAP’s ecosystem entirely. The numbers underscore the urgency: according to a DSAG investment survey for 2026, only three percent of SAP customers use SAP Business AI productively, while 77 percent of AI-active enterprises rely on non-SAP tools like Microsoft Copilot.

Time is also a factor. Support for ECC 6.0 expires on December 31, 2027, leaving more than 10,000 customers world-wide with a migration decision that cannot be postponed indefinitely.

A stock in the red despite solid cloud numbers

Operationally, SAP’s core business remains robust. Cloud revenue hit nearly €6 billion in the first quarter, and the full-year target stands between €25.8 billion and €26.2 billion, with management forecasting cloud growth of 23 to 25 percent. Yet the share price tells a different story.

The stock closed Friday at €147.16, down about 1.5 percent on the day and roughly 44 percent below its 52-week high of €271.60. Year-to-date, SAP has lost more than a quarter of its market value. There are modest green shoots: the price has recovered roughly six percent from its April low of €139.12, and it has eked out a near-two percent gain over the past seven sessions.

What Orlando must deliver

The Sapphire conference runs from May 11 through May 13. All three days will be closely watched, but the financial analyst conference on Wednesday is the main event for investors. CEO Christian Klein, COO Sebastian Steinhaeuser and CTO Philipp Herzig are scheduled to take the stage at 11:00 a.m. EDT in a webcast open to the public.

Market participants expect concrete product roadmap details, especially around the on-premise AI offering and the extent of the Rise with SAP bundling. If the rumored opening is confirmed and the terms are clear, the Orlando meeting could turn an insider report into a strategic pivot. If the details disappoint, the bear case — already reflected in a stock that has halved from its peak — will only harden.