This one's all over the financial press, so I won't bother with any links right now. But it's worth asking what's really driving this. As lots of people have observed, it's a pretty dramatic strategic turnaround for SAP - especially on the heels of the Business ByDesign product announcement (which seemed to underscore their internal-growth plan).
So are they just playing catch-up to Larry Ellison? Or is it a deeper problem? The market expects some pretty big revenue numbers from SAP, and there aren't but so many $100MM software sales out there to be had. OK, so they'll launch the ByDesign midmarket play, but sheesh, that's a lot of volume they'll need to generate.
Maybe cheaper just to buy the revenue.
So, will they end up buying Infor eventually, as AMR's Bruce Richardson and others hasve suggested? I was skeptical, but less so now. Haven't seen that S-1 filing yet. Just think of all the trees we could save by just fast-forwarding straight to that deal.
Seems to me that maybe Sage is a good fit for SAP. They only real value in Sage is the customer lists. In trying to ramp up the ByDesign business, how much would it help to have captive audience of over 4 million companies, all of whom are on dead end products because of the Sage business model.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I'm all for "dead" metaphors, but can you elaborate on what you mean by "dead end products because of the Sage business model"?
ReplyDeleteSAP wil never ever buy infor.
ReplyDeleteInfor has like a zoo of different products, there is no value at all for SAP and infor has a complete opposite strategy.
I worked for Infor and people are leaving like rats from a sinking ship. They might know how to acquire companies, but don't have a clue about running one. There is no organic growth going on. SAP would be better just to wait for them to implode.
ReplyDelete