SAP rejects plans to pit Europe against US after NSA scandal

Idea for European IT firms to team up in order to snub US vendors branded nonsensical by SAP boss

SAP has ruled itself out of proposals to create a European super vendor in order to weaken reliance on US tech firms in light of the NSA snooping scandal.

Over the summer, the US' National Security Agency (NSA) was accused by whistleblower Edward Snowden of working with US tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook to spy on Europeans' data.

In light of the scandal, European politicians have considered taking measures to ensure such companies give full disclosure on their data use, but more recently German politicians have led the way in floating an idea for top European tech firms clubbing together to ensure citizens here are less reliant on US rivals.

But the "IT Airbus" as it is called – referring to the European jet maker which fiercely rivals US' Boeing business – has not caught the imaginations of everyone, with SAP firmly ruling itself out.

Jim Hagemann Snabe, chief executive of Europe's largest software maker, said the idea to cut off the US made no sense.

"A merger between some European IT companies with the aim of drawing a line between them and the rest of the global market, does not make any sense," he told Reuters.

"Such an endeavour would be doomed to fail from the outset."

Recent research by German analysts Software Cluster and Fraunhofer pinpointed 15 key regions across the continent which it thinks are leading the way in the region's software industry and could be best placed to take on the US' dominance of the software market.

London and the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire regions were listed among the group, and researchers claimed the recent NSA scandal could see the pendulum swing towards European players.