SAP acquisition of Business Objects leads to new road map

All are based on what will become SAP’s and Business Objects’ business intelligence platform, which provides a scalable infrastructure for information gathering, leading to what the pair call “actionable insight”. Importantly, the platform provides access to data of any type and is agnostic to the underlying business applications and data stores. The nine include: Financial Performance Management, which SAP describes as “an end-to-end suite of applications that CFOs and other business leaders rely on to increase their companies’ financial performance and operational efficiency”; Governance, Risk and Compliance, which does what it says on the tin, providing operational transparency and evidence that business is conducted within regulatory standards. Others are Visualisation and Reporting; Enterpriser Query, Reporting and Analysis; Data Integration and Data Quality Management; and Master Data Services – the latter enabling businesses to consolidate, harmonise and centrally manage business data. Incidentally, there are also three packages aimed at manufacturing SMEs: the cumbersomely named SAP Business All-in-One with Business Objects Edge Standard (guess what that does); Crystal Reports Server; and Business Objects Edge Series with integration to SAP ERP systems. “Our initial combined software packages enable new customers to experience the business value gained by the thousands of customers that are successfully running applications from the SAP and Business Objects solution portfolios,” says Léo Apotheker, deputy CEO and president of customer solutions and operations at SAP. “These initial offerings underline the already strong synergies in both our product and sales organisations... We fully intend to build upon these offerings and provide our customers with the innovative, market-leading solutions they’ve come to expect from SAP and Business Objects.”