According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, Business Objects has already appointed Goldman Sachs to find a suitable buyer, and that five potential names have been thrown up including German business applications software maker SAP.

The newspaper did not name its source and both Business Objects and SAP declined to offer any comment. It is our policy to not comment on any speculation or rumor, was the official Business Objects response.

Business Objects valuation is worth around $4.03bn (or 2.9bn Euros).

SAP isn’t the only firm that has been cited as a possible bidder for Business Objects, which maintains dual headquarters in Paris, France and San Jose, California. IBM and Oracle are also thought to be on the prowl for a BI vendor. IBM has been linked closely to Canadian BI firm Cognos several times in the past year.

And Business Objects was named among the nine companies on Oracle’s takeover hit-list that was made public during its hostile takeover of rival business applications provider PeopleSoft in 2004. Oracle has already snapped up Hyperion Solutions, a BI and performance management software provider, for $3.3bn earlier this year.

Our View

Le Figaro is trying to scoop a likely event that has been the subject of public speculation for over a year now. The acquisition of a major independent BI firm, be it Business Objects or Cognos, is certainly on the cards. The question is not if, but when, and who. SAP, Oracle, HP and IBM seem the likely buyers right now.

With Oracle buying Hyperion and SAP starting to turn up the steam on its own BI and analytics portfolio, a Business Objects buy would seem a logical choice for the German software maker.

HP is also starting to ramp up its own data warehousing business after releasing NeoView late last year and could be on the lookout for BI, analytics, and performance management tools to layer on top of that platform.

Of course, IBM also lacks a robust set of BI tools and technologies that would no doubt provide lucrative systems integration and consultancy opportunities for its services division as well.