Rumor Alert: Oracle Eyes SAP Buyout
That would be S(-full stop-)A-(full-stop-)P(-full stop), the ERP giant. Or, as Oracle chairman Larry Ellison has taken to calling it: "Sap." As in rhymes with "tap."
In the words of the CBRonline staff writer:
A PR person displayed the headline on her Blackberry last night causing me to nearly cough up a lung. How could an SAP-Oracle combo, a merging of the number one and two enterprise software players in the universe, pass regulatory muster? The short answer: It couldn't.
Here's the play-by-play:
Knee jerk reaction: "B.S."
Second reaction: "Hmmmm, This is Larry Ellison we're talking about."
Many immediately discounted his PeopleSoft bid as a PR stunt or a corporate dirty trick. Well guess what? It took.
Even though I always thought PeopleSoft "Oracle was a do-able deal, the Siebel Systems buy seemed implausable. Wrong again. Siebel is part-and-parcel of Oracle.
Will SAP join the stable? It strains credulity. But strange things come out of Redwood Shores.