SAP and cloud-based e-commerce vendor Ariba announced yesterday a deal worth $4.3bn, which is set to close in the third calendar quarter of this year.

Once finalised the deal will see the Ariba transaction substantially grow SAP's presence in cloud software, following on from its recent $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors, a company focused on human resources applications.

SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott said during a conference call with media and analysts that Ariba's network will grow to more than 1 million companies this year, and emphasised the huge growth potential it offered.

Ariba's trading network and procurement applications would also complement SAP's cloud-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite Business ByDesign, as well as the Business One application for smaller companies, McDermott said.