SAP move gets people talking

The news that software powerhouse SAP plans to acquire Business Objects Paris for $6.78 billion again points to the growing importance of business intelligence (BI) to financial services, according to Bank Tech.

Industry watchers are chattering about the significance of the deal, noting that SAP, which typically is very conservative when it comes to acquisitions, has deviated from its organic growth strategy in order to bring BI functionality in-house.

"The deal makes sense from the standpoint of marrying business intelligence technology with ERP [enterprise resource planning] applications," says Boris Evelson, principal analyst of BI, for Forrester Research. "The deal is surprising in the sense that SAP has long insisted its growth strategy is organic and it would not make major acquisitions to gain market share."

AsiaInfo has signed contracts with China Mobile`s Hubei, Liaoning and Shanghai to implement a newly-developed BI subsystem, says CNNMoney.

"The highly competitive wireless value added services market is an important growth driver for our telecom operator customers," said Steve Zhang, president and CEO of AsiaInfo.

"By leveraging our industry leading BI expertise, AsiaInfo`s enhanced BI system gives operators the decision-making capabilities they need to gain critical advantages over their competitors."

MicroStrategy recently announced financial results for the three-month period ended 30 September 2007, says CNNMoney.

Third quarter 2007 revenue was $95.8 million versus $77.7 million for the third quarter of 2006, a 23% increase.

"We are very pleased with our third quarter results, as we generated solid revenue growth across all lines of business and an operating margin of 30% while continuing to enhance our global business capacity," said Arthur Locke, MicroStrategy`s CFO.