Business Objects for sale! The fight continues.

Writing by Jorgen on Wednesday, 3 of October , 2007 at 8:17 pm

PARIS (Reuters) - Business Objects (BOBJ.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) (BOBJ.O: Quote, Profile, Research), a French-American business intelligence software maker, is looking for a buyer and has appointed Goldman Sachs to find an investor, Le Figaro newspaper said.
At current market prices, Business Object is valued at 2.9 billion euros ($4.03 billion).

The consolidation of BI tools is entering a new round. Will be this the one where the final knock out will be given? An article in the French paper le Figaro mentions that Business Objects (BOBJ) has hired Goldman to sell the company! This is sure to reignite the acquisition speculation again.

Until recently BOBJ official position was that they were not for sale. On the contrary they were on the acquisition path themselves and their ambition was to remain an independent BI software firm.

Although this is the official stand point rumor has it that they have been contemplating this move for quite a while. Unable to make the much needed growth as an independent software - fighting their opponent Cognos - they need a large platform vendor to make the difference.

Which of the usual suspects would be in the market for BOBJ?

1) Oracle does not seem like a logical choice. With all their recent acquisitions their BI portfolio seems to be complete enough. Also Fusion will have to be their main focus for now.

2) The SAP BI solution (SAPBW) has never won any prices. It was considered to be not very user friendly and limited in its possibilities. I had many clients inquiring on alternatives. They could use a good BI environment maybe more than any of the competition. With they recent acquisition of Outlooksoft they have the possibility to finally go for a complete BI/CPM platform: leveraging the power of the underlying SAP data.

3) Another good possibility are they guys and girls from HP. They have bought Knight bridge - a BI consulting firm - and have a comprehensive data warehouse solution/infrastructure. However they are still missing a BI tool or environment to go with this. This might be a great possibility to really enter the arena.

4) IBM always comes up in these kind of list - but somehow they never seem to bite. But they have they same starting point as HP with strong data warehouse infrastructure and consulting in place. But an American - French marriage often leads to many problems (although in real life I have a good friend who has fought the odds). I keep hearing rumors about Cognos and IBM. If HP decides to buy BOBJ then IBM must follow. Start calling your stoke broker.

Although there are more candidates out there - such as Microsoft (don’t think so), Cognos (that would be so funny but impossible), Teradata (a possibility after the split from NCR) or even the real outsiders as Google Aps (hmmm, have to think about that one) - my guess it will be one of the above.

Do you agree or have I missed something or someone? Please react and share your opinions.

Category: BI Tools, BI vendor consolidation, Business Objects, SAP

• Add this post to
• Del.icio.us -
• Meneame -
• Digg

No comments yet.

You must be logged in to post a comment.