Almost a year after SAP’s $8.6 billion acquisition of Business Objects, the two companies have achieved most of their initial goals, and the business intelligence software vendor is beginning have an impact on SAP’s core product strategy and business practices, said Business Objects CEO John Schwarz, in a recent interview with Managing Automation.
When Business Objects and SAP began discussing the acquisition, Schwarz said, the companies identified three potential benefits: to boost SAP’s share of the BI market; to extend SAP’s market opportunity beyond applications; and to expand SAP’s market beyond its existing customer base.
Since the acquisition, Schwarz said, SAP has achieved those objectives by combining the Business Objects BI business with its own while working to retain the Business Objects brand and its appeal to non-users of SAP applications.