SAP is casting a wider net to build out its HANA platform ecosystem, as it aims to court developers beyond its customer base.

At its TechEd developer powwow in Las Vegas, the company outlined a series of moves to make development easier with offline options and a more streamlined experience. SAP also bolstered its platform-as-a-service (PaaS) effort too.

The goal is simple: "We want to expand to the broader development community and their ability to use in-memory computing," said Marie Goodell, vice president of SAP's HANA platform marketing. SAP has bet big on its HANA database and analytics platform, and it enhanced its suites to run on it.

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On the first effort, SAP launched an express edition for HANA. The express edition is a version of HANA that can run on laptops and PCs. By allowing HANA to be tested offline and free, SAP is courting more developers. SAP HANA express edition is also available on cloud platforms such as AWS. SAP is offering developers up to 32GB of memory for free.

The express version of HANA is available in SAP's Cloud Appliance Library. The package will run on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Windows, Mac and SUSE via virtual machine.

Previously, SAP provided developers HANA via a developer edition that required infrastructure fees via cloud or physical servers. The HANA express edition is geared to provide developers such as students the "ability to test and code wherever they are".

On the SAP HANA Cloud Platform front, the company also enabled more offline coding with a personal edition of the SAP Web IDE. The WebIDE can sync with cloud versions when connectivity is available.

With the platform as a service update, SAP is adding features that appeal to its core developer base. The company also created a software developer kit for HANA that'll connect with the Web IDE.

The offline development addition is also a move to put HANA and SAP's apps and Fiori interface in front of more developers. SAP also launched a portal service that connects on-premise and cloud interfaces for hybrid cloud deployments. The portal service is open sourcing select apps and site templates.