As the news of the SAP acquisition of Business Objects continues to filter in, one term, new to this Performance Guy, keeps popping up throughout the articles and press conference today--the "Business User." It seems to be a new term to the analysts that follow SAP as well, representing a 3rd-wheel of strategy that is more acquisition friendly for SAP than their core businesses. It's in this third area that SAP apparently intends to continue to branch out with other acquisitions and new technologies (OutlookSoft for instance), and Business Objects is likely to be the cornerstone of this strategy moving forward.We'll discuss this issue more as the transaction unfolds, but there are some early prevailing thoughts on how this term came to be used: first, it might be something SAP just made up to justify the size of the acquisition of BOBJ--i.e., we can't say this is ERP, let's create a new category--hey Business Objects, who's your main customer? The business user? Great, let's call the new category that." Or, it may signal a big strategic shift for SAP whereby they continue to acquire new technologies under this umbrella and use this part of their company as an incubation area for higher growth IT products (BOBJ's earnings miss not withstanding). Or third, perhaps they created it to allow the illusion of independence for BOBJ customers, most of which are using something "other" than SAP, and upon which the company's "BI needs to be source independent" mantra has been based. By showing themselves as off to the side of the core SAP businesses, perhaps this allows Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM customers to feel more calm about using Business Objects in the future.
Whatever their reason (perhaps it's a combination of all three in some form), it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the course of the next several quarters!
