Blog: Shawn Rogers

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October 7, 2007

SAP to Acquire Business Objects

We first broke the story here on the Network on 9/15/07 when our French partner Philippe NIEUWBOURG tipped us off to local coverage in Paris. I am sure a lot will be written on this acquisition and I am still not sure how I feel about it so look for more on this from me as well.

Under the terms and conditions of the tender offer agreement, SAP will make a cash offer of € 42.00 per ordinary share and for American Depositary Shares (ADS) at the US$ equivalent based on the EUR/US$ exchange rate as of the settlement of the tender offers. The transaction volume taking into account the transaction costs will be slightly above €4.8 billion. The Business Objects board of directors has approved the tender offer agreement between the two companies and anticipates recommending the offer to its shareholders subject to fulfillment of certain regulatory requirements.

Here is a link to what Howard Dresner had to say about the merger last week.

Watch for more on this on Monday.

Tags: SAP, Business Objects, Howard Dresner, Business Intelligence, SaaS, Philippe NIEUWBOURG

Posted by Shawn Rogers at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 24, 2007

Howard Dresner weighs in on the rumored Business Objects sale.

I asked Howard Dresner for his perspective concerning the rumored sale of Business Objects. And he was kind enough to allow me to share his thoughts as a post here in my blog.

Here is what Howard had to say:

The short answer to the BOBJ article is that, if true, it’s somewhat unfortunate.

The market needs independent business intelligence and performance management vendors that are application, database and platform agnostic. Customer environments are complex and heterogeneous and “pure-play” vendors focus on supporting these environments in a balanced and impartial way. And, while the BI and EPM markets are maturing – they are not mature. My estimate is that penetration for BI within adopting organizations is at the 25 percent level – for users that could benefit from it. EPM is even lower. And, what about those organizations that don’t use either? So, there’s still tremendous opportunity!

What’s driving the acquisition engine? On one hand the BI and EPM markets are red hot. These technologies can add tremendous value – even more then ERP – if implemented properly. Let’s also not forget about the impact that the financial markets have upon public companies. They drive companies to show top and bottom line growth above all else. And, growth for most packaged operational applications has slowed. Large software companies must find new growth engines and BI and EPM represent this potential growth.

So, while it is lamentable that the numbers of pure-plays continues to decline, it’s not the end of the story by any means. For every vendor that is acquired, there are 20 emerging companies offering new approaches, technologies and business models. Many of these are focused upon software-as-a-service (SaaS) and open source. I believe that this will keep the market vibrant and exciting for a long time.

Howard Dresner

Tags: Business Objects, Howard Dresner, Business Intelligence, SaaS,

Other Stories:
Yahoo Finance
Barrons

Posted by at 5:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 20, 2007

Business Objects for Sale?

I've gotten a bunch of email on the news item we published this week about Business Objects looking for a purchaser. I don't have any new information on the piece but we'll let you know as soon as we do. Thank you to our partner in France, Philippe Nieuwbourg for supplying us with the story.

Posted by at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 7, 2007

Business Intelligence for SMB Market

It seems that everyone is taking notice of the SMB market. New offering abound that are targeted to bring business intelligence to a wider group of users. Its no secret that I am a big fan of solutions that help spread BI to more people so I'm sure you won't be surprised that I am happy to see Business Objects has launched Crystal Decisions, Standard Edition its the first solution from a suite of products targeted at the specific business intelligence needs of mid-size companies. Standard Edition introduces companies to intelligent reporting, query, analysis, and dashboards.

Previously, Business Objects launched crystalreports.com, an on-demand report sharing platform. The service now has 10,000 subscribers in the first nine months of availability.

I'm glad to see that BO is continuing its drive into the SMB market.

Posted by at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 31, 2007

Gartner Business Intelligence Summit UK

I thought I'd do a bit of a recap on the event so far. Its my first visit to London so everything here is a bit new. I can saw however that there is a certain element of comfort in that I have gotten to see many of my friends at the event. The attendance is great over 600+ and the content is reasonably solid as well. I say reasonably only because they are forced to span the advanced to the elementary in many of the talks so its difficult to keep all of us happy all the time.

Andreas Bitterer kicked things off yesterday and shared his latest research: Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q07. The leaders quadrant continues to contain Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion, Oracle and SAS. New comer to the report is Spotfire who was included due to it's "innovative analysis capabilities and positioning".

Microsoft's Alex Payne spoke in a session yesterday to a standing room only audience as he presented the importance of pervasive business intelligence. An interesting point was discussed during the session concerning pricing. The bottom line being that low cost or "cheap pricing" doesn't always mean that a product isn't enterprise quality or feature rich. Alex drove the point home by unveiling the new pricing options available and it caused a few gasps in the room. In short, enterprise ready business intelligence at extremely aggressive pricing has officially arrived.

Several people left the room in a rush after the slide went up, its possible not everyone in the space is pleased with the new pricing?

I hope to have more on the Microsoft piece today.

Posted by at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 4, 2005

Business Objects buys Infommersion

In an all cash transaction ($40 Million) Business Objects will acquire Infommersion. The San Diego based company specializes in information visualization. I have used the solution and I think its a great addition to the BO line-up. Its easy to use, fast and great for small to midsize companies. I'm not sure of the install base at Infommersion but looking at the unit price of the solution and the price paid by Business Objects I'll bet they will have a great conduit into a bunch of new prospect companies.

Posted by at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)