More mobile
It's not just consumer-facing companies that are focusing on mobile devices it seems. German enterprise software giant SAP has announced it has bid $5.8 billion to acquire US software company Sybase.
Sybase is a database company that has been around since 1984, traditionally competing against SAP rivals Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. For the past decade, however, it has focused on bringing its software to mobile devices, with the attendant focus on the cloud, via its Unwired Enterprise strategy. So this acquisition is a strong statement from SAP about where it thinks the future lies.
"With this transaction, SAP will dramatically expand its addressable market by making available its market-leading solutions to hundreds of millions of mobile users, combining the world's best business software with the world's most powerful mobile infrastructure platform," said Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP.
"This is a game-changing transaction for SAP and Sybase customers, who will be better able to connect their employees with key functionality and information from anywhere and make it easier for companies to make faster, more informed business decisions in real time."
"Mobile devices are becoming the preferred interaction point with business applications, whether the user is a factory supervisor, a retail manager or an entrepreneur in a developing nation," said Jim Hagemann Snabe, the other co-CEO.
"The combination of SAP and Sybase will give users the option of running their operations from leading mobile devices and will unleash the full power of mobility, including messaging interoperability, content delivery and mobile commerce services, across all companies and roles and in any location."
Sybase will operate as a standalone unit called ‘Sybase - an SAP company'. The purchase price represents a 44 percent premium over Sybase's three month average and SAP is having to borrow €2.75 billion from Barclay Capital and Deutsche Bank to fund it. Looks like the capital markets are finally beginning to loosen-up a bit.
