Last week SAP announced that Lars Dalgaard is leaving.  Dalgaard had widely been expected to lead its cloud computing business.  Dalgaard joined the company in late 2011 when SAP bought Web-based software company SuccessFactors, Inc., which was SAP’s attempt to catch up with the cloud computing market.

This is not SAP first case of abandonment.  SAP suffered a setback at the start of 2013, when top sales managers in Asia left.  This gave their competition a leg up while demand was surging for cloud computing.  SAP said Dalgaard will step down from the board and be leaving the company effective June 1.

As we’ve covered here, SAP’s movement into the cloud has been a rocky path.  The departure of Dalgaard could be something bad, in that they lose even more momentum.  Or, perhaps it’s time that fresh eyes take a look at SAP’s cloud computing strategy.  At least they did not say that Dalgaard was leaving to spend more time with the family.