Perspective on SAP Acquisition Of Business Objects on MAIA Business Intelligence Blog

Slide 1: Perspective on the SAP Acquisition of Business Objects | BI Blog | Business Intelligence ... Page 1 of 5 Home About Us Our Products Our Services Case Studies Global Partnership Program Submit a Post Perspective on the SAP Acquisition of Business Objects Author: Jatin Shah, Datamatics Ltd. SAP recently announced its plans to acquire Business Objects for $6.8 Billion. BI-Group has closely followed this announcement & would like to share the perspectives on the impact of this acquisition on the BI market. This acquisition is a continuation of a shakeout process in the BI market space. Although Business Objects has grown to considerable size through a long series of acquisitions, the acquisitions have masked some fundamental weaknesses in its technology offerings. Business Objects’ BI products are fragmented, lacking both scalability and integration, making them inappropriate for many applications in the new generation of enterprise BI. It is believed that Business Objects needed and was so eager to be acquired because it had accumulated a large collection of non-integrated technologies in a market where organic technical integration is essential for providing enterprise BI solutions. SAP rushed into the purchase of Business Objects and paid a premium price, even though Business Objects warned that Q3 revenues and earnings would be well below Wall Street estimates. One must wonder whether the acquisition was a defensive move by SAP to prevent a competitor from acquiring Business Objects. Unless SAP maintains Business Objects purely as a portfolio investment, it is likely that Business Objects’ architecture will change to improve integration with the SAP suite & that the customers will be forced to undergo even more major migrations. http://blog.maia-intelligence.com/2008/01/22/perspective-on-the-sap-acquisition-of-busine... 3/12/2008

Slide 2: Perspective on the SAP Acquisition of Business Objects | BI Blog | Business Intelligence ... Page 2 of 5 As SAP influences the Business Objects’ product set to be more aligned with the needs of the SAP BI architecture, the architecture and design priorities of Business Objects’ products & technology will become even less applicable and likely move away from data warehousing. There is significant overlap within SAP and Business Objects’ technologies and product suites. Customers with products that are undergoing integration will face painful migrations. Customers with products that are not being integrated face the likelihood that SAP will slow down development on those products, and ultimately end them. Few of the significant areas of product overlap between Business Objects and SAP are as follows: Product Category Business Objects SAP Xcelsius, Visual Composer, Dashboards and Scorecards Dashboard Manager, Web Application Designer Crystal Vision Web Intelligence, BEx Web Analyzer, OLAP Intelligence, Voyager, Query, Analysis and Reporting BEx Analyzer, ABAP™, Crystal Reports, Cartesis, BEx Report Designer, Pilot Inxight Software Office Plug-ins Live Office BEx Analyzer Nsite (on demand), crystalreports.com NetWeaver xApps Application Infrastructure Vertical and Horizontal Apps Vertical and Horizontal Apps Desktop Design Tools Desktop Intelligence, Designer BEx Query Designer Portals InfoView SAP NetWeaver Portal SEM-BCS, BPS, Netweaver® BI-Integrated Planning, Performance Management or SRC, ALG Software, Cartesis OutlookSoft, CPM Netweaver® BI Advanced Planner and Optimizer, mySAP ERP Express Planning Master Data Management Metadata Manager, Composer SAP NetWeaver® Master Data Management Data Integrator (Acta), Data Federator (Medience), ETL/EII/EIM Data Extraction routines to populate SAP BI Data Quality (Firstlogic, FUZZY! Informatik) Mobile Interactive Viewing Mobile SAP NetWeaver® Mobile (InfoView Mobile) ShareThis Posted on January 22nd, 2008 by Jatin Shah Filed under: Business Intelligence | Edit Related Posts Business Objects and Cognos Customers - Redefine Your Dead Investments Generic View on Data Warehousing and BI Tools Business intelligence market consolidation won’t terminate Innovation CIO: “Your customers are doing the integration for you.” http://blog.maia-intelligence.com/2008/01/22/perspective-on-the-sap-acquisition-of-busine... 3/12/2008

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