Telecom service providers certainly use both SAP apps (accounting, CRM and more) and Sybase databases and mobile technologies, but does the combination of the two companies — announced in a nearly $6 billion acquisition yesterday — equal more than the sum of the parts for our market? The competitor most mentioned as being targeted by the new combined companies is Oracle (though HP and IBM are on the radar as well), which is, of course, a major telecom software player. However, Oracle supplies much more than ERP and database apps to telecom, having through a series of acquisitions pulled together an OSS/BSS portfolio as extensive as any software player in telecom. Does SAP-plus-Sybase measure up in comparison?
GigaOm has a bit from analysts on Sybase’s mobile and cloud plays in particular:
Forrester Research’s Paul Hammerman believes that “With Sybase Unwired, the mobile apps can be written once and deployed on multiple mobile platforms” and “gives SAP the opportunity to develop new types of business applications for mobile devices.”
Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone points out “the fusion of cloud computing, application mobility and social media to transform the enterprise mobility space. This deal now gives SAP 2 out 3 in a single purchase.”
Connected Planet’s take,
Susana Schwartz:
Oracle is the leading database player with a 28.2% share of the $2.2 billion database software market, while Sybase had an 8.5% share, according to IDC. Rather than rest on its laurels, Oracle reached out to capture market share in applications as well. So in addition to its acquisitions of J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel and Retek, the company also pursued Metasolv and Portal. As telcos look to consolidate and streamline, they might increasingly look to Oracle as the one-stop shop for all database, OSS and BSS needs. However, critics might question whether acquired applications are really “integrated” enough to make application integration any easier. For service providers, standards such as SID and eTOM help piece it all together.
SAP-plus-Sybase, though powerful in the database area, will have a slightly different focus than Oracle, as I don’t think the combo can be a real threat to Oracle, which also has fault management, billing, performance management, network management, provisioning, inventory, activation and other hot components. Although, SAP also partners with Microsoft and IBM, I think it’s Oracle that will still dominate.
The deal is being positioned as a corporate mobile applications play, even though licenses in Sybase’s database business grew faster than its mobile business last quarter. Some analysts think it’s a risky deal, but it strengthens SAP’s financial services reach. As for the mobile market, it is still too nascent to really know what will happen.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below: