What's Going to Happen With Business Objects in 2009?

The biggest story of 2009 in SAP is going to be the economy. We knew that a month ago – heck, we probably knew that six months ago. Early indications are that it’s going to be a challenging year for SAP financially, but no more so than for all enterprise software vendors.

The problem is that obvious stories aren’t usually very interesting to blog about. So what’s going to be interesting for SAP market watchers? The compelling stories will relate to how the economy intersects with other SAP initiatives – for example, with the ongoing Business Objects integration. Intelligent Enterprise Editor-in-Chief Doug Henschen got this topic off to a good start with his recent blog post entitled “SAP ‘Fully Integrates’ Business Objects.”

Henschen’s blog title was a tad misleading; we already know from the combined roadmap that SAP and Business Objects won’t be fully integrated from a product perspective for a number of years. We can look to 2010 for two integrated SAP-BO releases of significance: NetWeaver Crystal Reports and “Pioneer,” the combined BEx Analyzer and BO Voyager product. (for more on the specifics of the SAP-BO product integration, I highly recommend SAP’s own detailed FAQ).

So if Henschen wasn’t referring to product integration, what was he referring to? As it turns out, Henschen’s piece pertains to the fact that the Business Objects sales force is now, in the words of Bill McDermott, President and CEO of Global Field Operations and an Executive Board Member, “fully integrated” with SAP’s. Henschen reveals another indication of the tightening relationship between these business units: as of January 1, 2009, Business Objects is no longer “Business Objects, an SAP Company.” It is now: SAP Business Objects.

The increasing blurring of the lines between SAP and Business Objects is not surprising, given how much the two companies naturally complement each other from a product angle. I have been hearing for almost a year that the sales teams for each team were finding real advantages cross-selling the other, so it makes all kinds of sense for the sales teams to be very closely aligned.

One thing we do know about this current spending environment is that “Business Intelligence,” in many different flavors, is still high on the list of projects that are actually getting green-lighted. If you type the phrase “BI in recession” into Google, you’ll see a host of articles from a variety of perspectives, all emphasizing the relevance of BI projects during economic downturns.

This quote from Louis Columbus of CRMbuyer.com from earlier in 2008 sums up the case for BI nicely: “With the risk of a recession hanging around like a high maintenance relative who doesn't know when to go home after the holidays, BI is going to be the foundation for fighting back bad economic news, and creating entirely new approaches to measuring marketing, manufacturing, services, pricing and operations performance.”

We are even seeing some signs of BI “Software as a Service” options picking up a bit of momentum, so that’s another trend for us to monitor in 2009. Thanks to Business Objects, SAP is right in the mix with its “BI OnDemand” offering from “SAP Business Objects.” In a recent blog post, Courtney Bjorlin, News Editor for SearchSAP.com, did a nice job of documenting the case for “BI SaaS” in recessionary times. The issue for SAP in this sense, however, is that Business Objects SaaS business was built almost entirely along with Salesforce.com, comprising the bulk of its BI SaaS customer base. On this end, without a clear vision and generally available SaaS solution around CRM and ERP, it will be pretty tough for SAP to marry Business Objects On-Demand into its own applications. But perhaps this is another reason why Wookey was brought in?

Back to the subject of criticizing blog titles: we can now assess my own, and I admit that it’s still too early in 2009 to responsibly predict what to expect from BI or any other SAP product. This will be an important topic to return to once spending patterns for 2009 are better revealed. For now, I’m very comfortable saying this: those who have a stake in the SAP Business Objects space are as well-positioned as any in the SAP space to have a successful 2009, regardless of what else unfolds.