Bob from IBM posted a comment a while ago I missed (sorry Bob) to my post about SAP/Teradata or SAS/Teradata/SAP mergers.
Well with SAP buying Sybase that gives them the database they needed.
They missed out on Analytics when you guys snapped SPSS.
So that leaves either a SAS/Teradata play (we could even through ESRI into it to make it spicy) or a SAS/SAP play.
Given the collaboration between SAS/Teradata via their in-database processing and Teradata’s sponsorship of SAS events (well in Australasia at least oh and while you are there scroll to the bottom and let me know what you think of the extra a in SaasInct, i’m not so sure i’m loving it) then a merger would technically be simple and there are not a lot of competing capability apart from Data Mining and Marketing Automation etc.
The SAS/SAP one is interesting cause it gives them a world leading Analytics capability, but competes with BO. Then again buying multiple competing products never stopped Uncle Larry at Oracle.
The key is why would SAS offer themselves to SAP, as Dr Jim will obviously choose if and when he sells and also to whom.
The SAP/Teradata one would give SAP a form of Analytics, but with them buying Sybase (and paying so much) the value they would receive would be so much less than before.
And I still havent discounted HP buying some software capability to get into the game, but with the market convergence still happening then they are losing the ability to get enough pieces to compete I think.
One of the things I lost track of was the number of companies SAS has purchased since I left. It wasn’t until I was doing some research around SAS solution for Risk that I started to see a whole raft of new companies and capability. Need to find time to track them all down and blog them out of interest.
So anyway after all that no real answer or insight on who and what next, which I had that Octopus from the Soccer World Cup and then I could invest in shares and retire to blog full-time 
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