SAP will pay 42 EUR per share
SAP, the German company that sells and implements ERP software, has acquired the Business Intelligence platform BusinessObjects. Both information technology companies have agreed on the price per share and other conditions. SAP will pay 42 EUR in cash per ordinary share and John Schwarz, CEO of BusinessObjects will stay in charge of the BusinessObjects product group.
A highly competitive Business Intelligence market
With the acquisition of BusinessObjects SAP will get a substantial market share in the highly competitive Business Intelligence market. The company had a Business Intelligence solution with SAP Business Warehouse, the query tool BEx and the business process platform SAP NetWeaver BI, but they run with SAP only. In addition these solutions were far from being innovative and their functionality and usability was relatively poor compared to BusinessObjects and most of the other Business Intelligence tools.
BO is seen as one of the market leaders
BusinessObjects is seen as one of the market leaders in Business Intelligence software, having a complete solution for ETL, data warehousing, Business Intelligence and performance management. The reporting tools of BusinessObjects, both BO reporter and CrystalReports, are recognised as leading reporting platforms and in use by many companies.
Pixel-perfect reports & SAP BW: a good combination?
They are very good in creating pixel-perfect reports and distributing them to business users in a fashionable manner. BusinessObjects didn’t have OLAP software on board although they could connect well to OLAP servers like Microsoft OLAP and SAP BW with specific data connectors. One advantage of the takeover is that BusinessObjects now has direct access to cube technology and may well integrate this technology in the product suite.
