Pilot Boards SAP

SAP is buying Pilot Software.

Pilot was one of the old-school Executive Information System (EIS) vendors that promised to find and blend silo'd often big-iron-based data in an easily understood graphical dashboard view for non-techie execs.

In that it was years ahead of the whole 360-degree- data view promised by today's analytics and ERP vendors. At least in terms of message. Pilot used to live in funky-cool office space in downtown Boston.

Pilot, now headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. is privately held and terms were not disclosed. Here's the press release.

SAP calls this a "tuck in" acquisition. In SAP parlance, this means the company is "furthering its commitment to provide C-level executives with the tools necessary for effective performance management by fostering alignment across their organizations."

Say WHAT? Guys, it helps if a sentence actually says something.

More clearly, SAP will take PilotWorks and tie it into NetWeaver development platform.

At minimum, this buy, which is likely quite small in money terms, shows that the land grab for analytics and BI capabilities is still on. It started years ago with Siebel Systems buying nQuire, then Oracle and others buying up analytics wherewithal for their core business applications. Oracle then bought Siebel and called its analytics the "hidden jewel" of its near-$6-billion Siebel buy.

Given all of this M&A madness, the question remains: What's the future for analytics kingpins Business Objects and Cognos??