At TechEd in Bangalore this week, Vishal Sikka, SAP's chief technology officer clarified the rationale for the recent Business Objects acquisition.
New York Times: "Typical examples of this class of applications are planning, financial consolidation and evaluating risk, according to Sikka. These applications are targeted at business users rather than at process workers or task workers like clerks and accountants..."
Now wait a minute, is that not what the SAP/Microsoft Duet analytical tools already do? I am not exactly surprised if Duet is taking a back seat, but the speculation was SAP would integrate with newer SaaS versions of Office from Google, Zoho etc.
I hope to see Vishal next week. I am sure he will clarify. May need a few data cubes, though to explain all the permutations of products SAP has in the analytical area.
