SAP is the largest enterprise level software developer in the world. When a company like SAP decides to start using open-source platforms and code to manage it's own operations, it's a big move. As Claus von Riegen, SAP's program director of technology standards and open source, states "We have a lot of areas where we develop our own software, but there are a lot of commodity areas where we don't need to differentiate ourselves." That's where open-source software fills in the gap.
SAP isn't just "leeching" off the open-source community, they are also very large contributors. Recently SAP contributed 1.8 million lines to the Eclipse project, making it the third-largest corporate contributor. So it's not all about making money, SAP can contribute in a meaningful way to the community. This move signals to the market that open-source software won't necessarily kill for-profit software development, in fact, it may help produce this proprietary software even faster. Like the famous poet Ralf Waldo Emerson said, "Our best thoughts come from others".