In an interview published in FT Deutschland, he is reported to have said: There are only three potential buyers: IBM, Microsoft, and Google. I don’t see anyone else. If shareholders think that a combination, and not independence, is better, then it will happen.
He went on to say: I do not want to invent rumors because there are no talks. However, I do not want to say that I dislike IBM so much that I could not imagine such a scenario at all.
The story is similar to one that broke last year when CEO Henning Kagermann was asked about SAP’s acquisition stance and said that if there were to be an offer, SAP would consider it. He could not respond otherwise because as a public company SAP has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of its shareholders, but the story had no basis in reality. The latest storm appears to have similar origins and as little substance.
What is interesting are the three vendors Plattner named. Only Microsoft would be a credible player, and a merger between the two companies has already been briefly discussed and dismissed on the grounds of complexity, and no doubt antitrust issues. But the two have decided to work closely together on certain projects.
IBM has shown no desire to get back into application software because it would undermine a core tenet of its business, which is to garner database and middleware sales and high-margin consulting engagements by partnering with application providers. Risking the large potential of the partner pool for the sake of a single vendor’s portfolio of competing software would make no business sense. That is especially so when you consider the contortions SAP and Oracle are having to undergo in order to generate growth because their core markets are saturated.
However, it is faintly conceivable that IBM might consider SAP, or more likely vice versa, in order to be able to offer a complete stake, comprising database, middleware and enterprise business applications, thereby matching what Oracle can offer. Such a move might even hand IBM/SAP an advantage because it would add an operating system component, something Oracle is working on, but the likelihood is remote.
That leaves the Google wildcard, but unless Google is planning to move in a completely new direction, there is nothing synergistic about a SAP/Google combination. Its presence on the list is probably due to its being one of the few players with the financial ability to take on SAP, which has a market capitalization of 50bn euros ($64bn), a trait it shares with IBM and Microsoft.
Plattner’s comments could be designed to reinforce SAP’s market position by emphasizing that it is largely safe from acquisition.
