Been busy with the LAW !!!

By S.Suren

Well the recent weeks has been quite busy for the 2 top ERP Giants, when it comes to attending court sessions, meeting with lawyers and appointments with investment analysts.

SAP has been in the spotlight with the suit filed against it by i2. Its stated that SAP could end up paying $83.3 M to settle the i2 patent suit. i2 filed suit against SAP, claiming infringement of a number of its software patents related to supply chain optimization and modeling software techniques. However the good news here for investors in both companies is that, this suit is unlikely to have any significant impact on the market values of both companies.

It is also estimated that SAP could pay close to $1 Billion to settle the suit filed by Oracle. This has been a long standing law suit between the company and some expect that this case could drag on up to the mid of 2009 before a judgment can be made. Will keep you all updated when it does happen !!

SAP on the other hand has also been busy with expanding their portfolio, with the acquisition of Visiprise, a privately held provider of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) to discrete manufacturing. This acquisition is a strategic step for SAP, in moving forward in achieving its vision of the "Perfect Plant", which I had posted an article on, in the past. With SAP concentrating on small business more now and their investments in delivering products for this markets estimated to be close to $520 M, it is only likely that there are many more acquisition to expect in the future.

Oracle has been busy with acquisitions too, this shouldn't come as a surprise since we all know that Oracle find it very hard to resist take-over calls. Oracle, have supposedly recently agreed to acquire insurance policy software supplier AdminServer Inc and as well as Skywire Software's application software business.

I am still sticking to the prediction that this year is the year of the ERPs and we could very well have a clear cut leader in this industry and a new business process platform (perhaps initiated by SOA) at the end of this year. I shall keep you all posted on the latest developments.

Hope you found this post informative.

Have a nice day!!!

Feel free to send me your comments and queries to ssurenlk@msn.com.