Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz » SAP exec says Oracle deal changes PM landscape

March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

SAP exec says Oracle deal changes PM landscape

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The acquisition of Hyperion by Oracle has spurred a great deal of debate on this site and many others.

I wrote in my analysis that many CIOs are reluctant to buy a performance management [PM] solution from enterprise ERP vendors like SAP or Oracle.

The analysts say that PM is a mission critical application and a CIO would prefer a company that is 100 percent committed to that PM. The alternative is a company that is juggling many balls in the air at the same time. Some analysts think this will work against Oracle.

But one argument I hadn't heard comes from Peter Graf, executive vice president, Proeuct & Technology Group, at SAP.

Graf takes a very pragmatic view of the Oracle purchase and rather than agreeing with single solution PM vendors like Cognos and Business Objects who say this will send enterprise customers scurrying to them, Graf says the opposite will happen. Why?

Because, Graf says, this acquisition demonstrates to CIOs the instability of the boutique or single focus vendors. It points out that no matter how large they are a bigger fish like Oracle, or IBM can swallow them up.

So CIOs who are risk averse would rather go with an SAP or one of its large compettiors so as not to worry about buyng a mission critical application from a company that may disappear overnight.

After all, even a company that has been around for over twenty years like Hyperion is now history.

Graf makes a good point and if nothing else it will have to be put into the pot of things to onsider before any company decides what to deploy.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on March 5, 2007 02:02 PM

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