This is just another story of Foot in Mouth- but this time it is not just Indian news source- this time, the scale is global and a major goof. Read the following story of SAP buying Business Objects in Yahoo! news. It's an all cash and loan deal- though as the article says, this acquisition[I wonder why they wouldn't use that word- need to enquire with my financially more endowed friends on the exact legal difference between acquisition and buy-out]..that apart, this buy out would give SAP a good opening into the BI space- not that, it isn't there already- but truth be said, SAP is a bulky and bloated behemoth- what it needs is not a "One-size-fits-all" approach- as it is seen, what is good for big corporations needn't necessarily true for Small and Medium scale companies- the data volume, the turn around time, the decision making processes, needs and urgencies are vastly different in a SME than a traditional huge enterprise.

To be agile and nimble footed is a pre-requisite to survive in such a scenario- as also the ability to wage the price-war. SAP had been a very slow mover when it comes to acquisition and inorganic growth- Oracle had been in a buying spree for sometime now and had been lapping up promising and successful companies alike. As things stand now, almost all the independent BI vendors except Cognos had already been acquired- does that mean that it would be Cognos next? No one knows. Also, the question remains would Oracle make a competing bid to Business Objects?

Coming back to the Foot in Mouth, this is how the news report ends as of 11:17 PM, Oct 7, 2007[This is just for a time stamp- may be they will realize this and correct it later]

SAP also bought management software producer Hyperion in March for 3.3 billion dollars.

Like I said, my foot- It was Oracle that bought Hyperion, not SAP. Proof read please.

[Update at 11:42 PM]- Seems like it is an agency news...from AFP. This is not an error on the part of Yahoo! but on the part of AFP. Now, this is much more interesting because, the same news would be reported by multiple sources- in this case, like the Google News. There should be more careful editorial oversight.