Blogging about all things SAS

So my theory that Sun was going to merge with HP or SAP is shot now that Oracle have brought them (ok how about a shotgun marriage then

Then I noticed this blog SAP and Teradata Punch Back at Oracle announcing Teradata and SAP working closer together.

So will SAP buy Teradata?

And where does this leave SAS?

Are we moving towards 3 mega companies that provide Hardware, Software, and Services?

Does that mean Microsoft will need to buy Dell for hardware, and a somebody else for services.

What about HP (EDS) merging with Microsoft? It would give Microsoft Hardware and Services to add to their Opertaing Systems, Data base and BI tools. Which product would win out NeoView or Sql Server?

So many questions so few answers.

(well at least I can answer the NeoView vs Sql Server one

Well I have been saying that SAP, HP, SAS or Teradata have to merge for a while now, or they will get a hiding from the big boys of Oracle, IBM and Microsoft.

HP have brought EDS, they are still flogging Neoview and I am dropping them off my list of merger candidates for 2009.

So that leaves SAP/SAS/Teradata.

SAP have a partnership with SPSS, via BO so it would make sense for them to purchase SPSS to give them the embedded analytics pedegree they need.

SAS and Teradata are playing very nicely at the moment, given Teradata;s new inDB oferring with SAS. (There is talkof an Oracle version of this arriving soon, wonder how that will effect the relationship)

Oracle brought Thinking Machines (an analytical/data mining company) ages ago so they won’t be looking to buy SAS (but then who would think the would buy JDE, Peoplesoft and Siebel).

So a prediction for 2009, SAP will buy Teradata and then form a partnership with SAS, which will enable them to buy SAS in 2010/2011.

I posted earlier that given the current convergence what were the chance SAS would merge and with who.

Interesting post about the Microstratgy conference over at Cindi Howson’s BIScorecard blog

What took my interest was these comments:

“Another interesting take away from the conference in aftermath of recent consolidation was MicroStrategy’s dance partners. CTOs from Informatica (the market leader in ETL) and Teradata (a market leading database for data warehousing), and MicroStrategy united to discuss pervasive BI. These BI/datawarehouse independents all have a commonality in that they:

• focus exclusively on only a portion of the BI market
• don’t compete with one another
• greatly complement each other”

Convergence in the past has tended to a two company dance (although Oracle often waits for one vendor to swallow a few others before swallowing them – aka JD Edwards and Peoplesoft).

So whats the chance that companies like Teradata, Informatica, Microstrategy would agree to merge all at once, and if they did that would they need SAS to round out the offering? I don’t think they would, SAS just has to many competing products for each to them, but adding SPSS to their mix would make sense.

So that would create the following powerhouses:

1. IBM

2. Oracle

3. Microsoft

4. SAP

5. The Consortium

and that would leave SAS really out on a limb, making the HP/SAS merger far more likely.

(it would also provide an interesting grouping of vendores depending on how you look at their product offering, but I will post about that later)

Time will tell.