Big Endian

SAP buys Virsa

Two days ago, SAP announced their acquisition of Virsa. This was a pretty expected move by them, but it does point out a few things:

1) SAP is being more open to growth through acquisition

2) They are investing in edge technologies that all of their customers are demanding/requiring

There is a good quote from Shai on this where he points out that SAP, because they are not mired in a multi-year integration problem, can actually focus on incremental value. For the time being, that argument holds water with me. Wether I think SAP can get to 100,000 customers in the next 6 years is a different thing.

I Knew Ellison Was Building a Death Star

I have written about 30,000 words on the Oracle versus SAP battle. I think the following 2 minute YouTube video pretty much blows anything I have said away. Darth Ellison battles the forces of Jedi ABAP and Jedi Java. Who knew those folks in Waldorf could be so whacky.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aAuxdYZ_mLQ

ERP Down Under

I read a good article covering the results of a smallish survey in Australia on Oracle, SAP and Microsoft. Not suprisingly, Oracle and SAP seem pretty evenly split, there is skepticism about any up front cost savings of SOA, Microsoft is very far behind in perception, and licensing fees are becoming a much bigger source of concern as folks contemplate how much to pay for licensing before they make any final choices about Fusion or NetWeaver.

For those unfamiliar with the options for Oracle/PeopleSoft/JD Edwards/Siebel - here is a short list to get you started:

TomorrowNow (leading PeopleSoft, JD Edwards 3rd party maintenance provider) [full disclosure, TN is a Newmerix customer]

Klee Associates (JD Edwards)

Rimini Street (Siebel)

BTRG (PeopleSoft)

LegacyMode (PeopleSoft)

Cage Match - Part Two

I an earlier post - I pointed to a fun online debate over who would win: SAP or Oracle. Each participant wrote an article arguing their reasons for SAP's or Oracle's inevitable success or failure. The follow up is a rebuttal from both original authors to their counterpart's first piece. It's worth a read, if for nothing else than the pretty open handed jabs between the authors.

Cage Match

I found a good article a little while back pitting articles against each other on the same topic, "Who will win, SAP or Oracle?"

http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid11_gci1169992,00.html