Last checked at 
FRANKFURT, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Europe's biggest softwaremaker SAP has earmarked 2 billion euros ($2.2 bln) forinvestments in products that help companies to connecteverything from washing machines to cars to the Internet.
The German company said it would invest that amount by theend of 2020, targeting what it estimates to be a 250billion-euro market in the so-called Internet of Things (IoT),in which regular objects are connected to networks to send andreceive data.
Such functions are increasingly used in manufacturing andareas such as logistics, digital farming, drones or 3D printing.
SAP sealed a deal last week to work with German car partsmaker Robert Bosch to connect everything fromscrewdrivers to cars to the Internet, and more deals couldfollow.
The company will launch a new product line, dubbed SAP IoT,which will combine large amounts of data from things connectedto the Internet with machine learning and SAP's real-timedatabase S/4 HANA.
"It is a big and growing market and we think we can be asignificant part of it," said Tanja Rueckert, SAP's executivevice president in charge of digital assets and Internet ofThings.
"While business and public sector entities haveunprecedented access to more information and real-time feeds,they still have difficulty tying it all together," SAP said.
By 2020, 21 billion IoT devices will be in use worldwide, upfrom fewer than 5 billion last year, research firm Gartner hasestimated.
Rueckert said part of the 2 billion euro investment planwould be reserved for targeted acquisitions, typically smallbolt-on deals that fit in SAP's IoT portfolio.
SAP said on Wednesday it had bought Italy's PLAT.ONE andFedem Technology from Norway for an undisclosed amount. Bothacquisitions will be integrated into SAP IoT.
"We cooperate with Siemens, Dell, Intel, T-Systems and Vodafone amongothers. We talk to other partners as well. That is the directionwe will continue to look at. To work with others inpartnerships," Rueckert said.($1 = 0.8932 euros) (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Susan Fenton)
