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Microsoft Should Acquire SAP, Not Yahoo
Reservoir Hill writes "Randall Stross has an insightful article in the NY Times that says that if Microsoft thinks this is the right time to try a major acquisition on a scale it has never tried before, it should pursue not Yahoo but SAP, another major player in business software, thus merging Microsoft's strength with that of another. This is more likely to produce a happy outcome than yoking two ailing businesses, Yahoo's and Microsoft's own online offerings, and hoping for a miracle. Stross points to Oracle as a company whose acquisition strategy has picked up key products and customers while avoiding venturing too far from its core business, or overpaying. Stross recommends that Microsoft acquire SAP and leave it alone as an autonomous division — which would avoid a culture-clash integration fiasco. Besides, large enterprise customers are arguably the best customers a software company can have. A few dozen well-paying Fortune 500 customers may actually be more valuable than tens of millions of Web e-mail 'customers' who pay nothing for the service and whose attention is not highly valued by online advertisers."
SAP isn't so much a finished application as a license for the vendor to bleed you dry with "special" modules supposedly tailored to your business. In one way, Microsoft software doesn't fit that model (i.e. SAP isn't just a shrink wrapped product like Office). In another way, the endless bleeding of your tech dollars while your practices are changed to match the (in)capabilities of SAP would suit their revenue requirements perfectly. The real problem is that SAP is probably too labour intensive for a company like Microsoft.
Because Google would /never/ considering doing anything in terms of an operating system. That's just silly!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
That way, they'll have most of the shit I desperately want to avoid in one spot.