The Federal Trade Commission approved the $6.8bn deal which is part of SAP’s strategy to double its customer base by 2010, as well as to stave off recent moves in BI by rival Oracle. In April Oracle bought Hyperion Solutions for $3.3bn.
According to the FTC, it has placed the SAP-Business Objects deal on a list of transactions that received an early termination of their antitrust reviews. Early termination refers to the completion of a review before the end of a mandatory 30-day period that’s required under US anti-trust law.
