If you care about this, I’m sure you’ve already heard that SAP have agreed to buy Business Objects:
The general consensus seems to be that this is bad news for Business Objects customers and that the last few remaining independents (eg Cognos) will go the same way too. Will Microsoft be buying anyone? MS aways gets mentioned as a potential buyer in these kind of situations (see for example Mark Rittman) but I just don’t see it happening myself – it would be completely out of character. IBM on the other hand…
It seems like SAP has been setting themselves up for years to appear as an attractive acquisition for MS. Although, I completely agree that an MS acquisition of SAP wouldn\’t be all that advantageous (unless you only look at SAP\’s business relationships) for MS.
Yes, but didn\’t the acquisition of SAP by MS very nearly go ahead (or at least get talked about seriously) abou 18 months ago, only for MS to decide they didn\’t think it was worth it? That\’s what I\’ve heard, and I doubt it would get talked about again unless someone else was about to buy SAP (and they are a pretty big company to swallow). I think an independent SAP is the best thing for MS.