Business Objects stock was trading up 4.6% at $49.73 on Nasdaq in the mid-afternoon trade last Friday. That’s well above the $46 target price of many analysts. Business Objects stock is up over 10% since September 27, when the takeover speculation first emerged.
Credit Suisse analyst James Clark said that Business Objects would offer value to a strategic acquirer in the software space.
But like BI rival Cognos, he said that Business Objects could feel the pinch of a strong Canadian dollar, noting that around 14% of Business Objects costs but just 4% of its revenue is derived from Canadian currency.
Business Objects stock is up over 10% since September 27, when the takeover speculation first emerged.
Neither Business Objects nor its potential suitors SAP and Oracle are commenting on the rumors. Meanwhile Business Objects got on with the business of running a software company and announced a technology tie-up with Adobe to improve end-user productivity.
Both companies will initially work together to develop a special connector from Business Objects Xcelsius dashboarding and visualization software for Adobe’s LiveCycle Data Services ES, which provides data remoting, messaging, and data management capabilities to help developers more efficiently integrate rich Internet applications (RIAs) with back-end data and systems. In effect the connector will let Xcelsius users stream real-time data into their dashboards, animated charts and graphs, and other visual business presentations.
They are also working to integrate Adobe’s Flex web application development software with Xcelsius, the aim being to open up Adobe’s AIR cross operating system application runtime development to non-developer audiences. Business Objects is also enhancing Xcelsius to allow it to export applications to Adobe AIR that allows developers to use HTML/CSS, Ajax, Adobe Flex and Flash to extend RIAs to the desktop.
The first phase of the initiative will feature joint technology enablement and product distribution.
Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES Connector for Xcelsius is expected to be available as a Business Objects bundled product in the first quarter of 2008. Further joint offerings from the two companies will also be launched in the first half of 2008.
