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Business Objects VARs could lose deals or be swallowed up by larger SAP VARs, channel sources said following the merger of the two software vendors.
After the announcement Oct. 8 of SAPs $6.78 billion acquisition of Business Objects, the two vendors said they would combine their channels to leverage the cross-selling opportunity.
“We intend to leverage each others offering in on-demand and there is a big potential in the mid-market space where we have our partner ecosystem that we can leverage to each others benefit,” SAP CEO Henning Kagermann said in a news conference Oct. 8.
John Schwarz, CEO of Business Objects, which has headquarters in both Paris and San Jose, Calif., added: “We have about 3,000 channel partners and SAP has roughly the same, so we can substantially accelerate by combining our products and uniting our channel as one.”
However, there will be challenges to operating a joint channel strategy, according to Richard Ptak, an analyst at Ptak, Noel and Associates. “It will be interesting to see how the two firms develop their joint channel and how they set up a way for both sets of partners to get marketing and technical support,” Ptak said. “If handled correctly, it could help SAP and Business Objects take advantage of the acquisition.”
