What Will SAP Acquire Next?

On Monday, preannouncements from IBM and SAP brought a fresh breath of air to the tech sector. And today, there are two major acquisitions in the enterprise software market. Looks like the dealmaking in the enterprise software sector will continue in 2008.

Today’s Two Big Acquisitions

Sun is buying open source database maker MySQL for $1 Billion. More than 100 million copies of MySQL’s database software have been downloaded and 50,000 copies are downloaded daily. MySQL had raised $39 million from Benchmark, Index, IVP, Intel, and SAP, and was in IPO discussions. It’s good to see that MySQL has found a

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Viacom – Discovering its Mojo

We did a lengthy review of Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA-B) vertical strategy in the Fall. Meanwhile, revenues were up 24% in 3Q07 to $3.27 billion. Adjusted net earnings grew 20% to $437 million and diluted EPS were $0.65, a 27% increase over 3Q06. The solid performance was due to the DreamWorks-Paramount blockbuster Transformers. Earlier this month,

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Accenture Should Roll-Up Indian Services Companies

Is Accenture (ACN) still in the body-shop business model? Yep. Why ruin a good thing when it’s working, some would ask. And India continues to be a strong leverage point for Accenture’s outsourcing activities, with a new consulting center opened in the last quarter. This was also reflected in the 40% increase in staff being

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Infosys In Light of Recession Fears

The general feeling of the West has been that the rise of the rupee would slow down the immense growth of business being funneled into India. The reality is that growth continues to boom in India, barely slowed by currency exchange rates. The short term looks alright for Infosys (Nasdaq: INFY). Infosys’ Q3 revenues posted

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SuccessFactors, An Early IPO

Yesterday, I looked at the new IPO NetSuite. Another SaaS company that has gone public is SuccessFactors. We will look at the company in detail in this post. Founded in 2001, SuccessFactors (Nasdaq: SFSF) is a leading provider of on-demand performance and talent management solutions. Its online employee appraisal software automates the performance review process.

Time Warner’s Restructuring

Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWX) shares have gone nowhere during the past five years and shareholders have been crying for radical action. The Company has appointed Jeff Bewkes as the new CEO. He is expected to turnaround the entertainment conglomerate by taking some tough decisions. Here’s what I think Time Warner should do.

NetSuite Could be a good Buy

In my post Trend Radar 2008: SaaS in SME, I said that in 2008, SaaS will penetrate the SME market in a big way and that NetSuite (NYSE: N) will be one of the beneficiaries of this trend. It provides enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce applications for mid-size businesses. NetSuite

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