While SAP's HANA-based architecture will force competitors to show their hands on their application infrastructure strategies, selling its most conservative customers on the potentially disruptive impact of its HANA-led architecture will be a key challenge ahead, according to a new Gartner report. The report, titled 'SAP Throws Down the Next Generation Architecture Gauntlet with HANA', discusses SAP's long-term application infrastructure strategy, based on in-memory computing, mobility and cloud. "This initiative is a bold attempt to effect a generational change for the company, and to allow it to compete with industry and thought-leading architectures. The vision is very ambitious, and, at the same time, consistent with users' aspirations," the report said. "SAP's vision will force megavendor competitors to respond by clearly and openly articulating their cloud and in-memory computing strategies."   However, Gartner also highlighted the hurdles ahead for SAP in making its new strategy a success. "In addition to addressing formidable technology and go-to-market challenges, SAP will have to introduce its highly innovative vision in a way that will be acceptable to the most conservative part of its customer base." Despite these challenges, the report indicated that the HANA architecture "likely will have a significant industry impact", and ...