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What Might Have Been: Microsoft Almost Bought SAP
steveorama writes "This article from Bloomberg indicates that 'Microsoft Corp, the world's largest software maker, approached late last year about buying the German company, a combination that would have vaulted it to the biggest seller of software for business applications.'" The talks came out in advance of likely disclosure in the ongoing merger battle involving Oracle, PeopleSoft and the U.S. Department of Justice. An anonymous reader points to this article in the Financial Times, adding "Microsoft says the discussions were halted due to the complexity involved in the transaction and in integrating the two companies. A merger with SAP would be a profound break with previous Microsoft strategy, and would likely have raised eyebrows among regulators."
I break wind and raise an eyebrow or two...MS buys a dumpster and the eyebrows of the DOJ raise so high they knock their own hats off.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
SAP and a bunch of saps.
"Only a German company would want to put a piece of software where one program controls every aspect of the organization."
(Non-flame, I'm German!)
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
> German anti-trust law, which are a wee bit more strigent than the US anti-trust law.
If you violate German anti-trust law, you get a slap on the wrist with a wet strudel.
Microsoft would merge with SAP the same way I merge with a cheeseburger.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Microsoft does nothing. Details at 11.
worst attempt at an anagram .... ever
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Unknown host pong.
Microsoft says the discussions were halted due to the complexity involved in the transaction and in integrating the two companies
I think it was more a COMPLEXITY of the SAP code that M$ did not understand!
Rocco
Worst attempt to remember the word acronym ...ever
Q: What do you get when you merge Microsoft and SAP?
A: Microsoft
Nuts. I was looking forward to MicroSap. Yes yes yes, minus one, redundant, but much like Everest, One has to because it was there.
Yup...
If you violate America anti-trust law, you get a slap on the wrist with a wet noodle.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
a consistent user interface
Yeah, a blue screen...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
At least Microsoft ran away in time and were smart enough to realize that even they could not integrate with SAP.
This is in sharp contrast to most companies who deal with SAP that end up spending up to 2 billion dollars for a product that doesn't even work.
We implemented SAP here late last year. I am firmly convinced that someone thawed a bunch of brain-damaged mainframe programmers frozen since 1970, gave them a box of icons (without explaining what any of them meant), and told them to build a windowing interface.
Kludge does not even begin to describe it.
Even that wouldn't be so bad if it actually worked. Somewhere, SAP salesmen are laughing all the way to the bank.
If you violate French anti-trust law, you get a slap on the wrist with a wet poodle!
No matter where you go, there you are; even before you arrive.
"Microsoft says the discussions were halted due to the complexity involved in the transaction and in integrating the two companies."
Wow. Microsoft halts due to any sort of complexity, eh? No wonder their software is so user friendly...
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
If you violate Soviet antitrust law, a wet poodle gets a slap on the wrist from you!