SAP Financial Results

SAP announced their financial results this morning.

Key items are:

• Total sales rose to 3.49 billion euros from 3.24 billion euros
• Fourth-quarter net income climbed to 850 million euros from 756 million euros
• License revenue fell to 1.32 billion euros from 1.42 billion euros a year earlier
• Revenue from software and related services increased to 2.67 billion euros from 2.47 billion euros
• Won’t forecast 2009 software and software-related revenue due to “the continued uncertainty surrounding the economic and business environment.”
• Reducing workforce by 3,000 to 48,500 staff

Further details can be found by reading the following links:

http://www.sap.com/about/investor/financialnews/press.epx?pressid=10799

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8wr_nTu6B80&refer=home

Goodbye Business Objects. Hello SAP Business Objects

Business Objects, an SAP company, is now called SAP Business Objects. This also applies to its products – e.g. SAP Business Objects XI, SAP Business Objects EDGE, etc.

If you try to access the http://www.businessobjects.com website, you now get redirected to http://www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/index.epx.

I actually like the new name.

There is also an article on the intelligent enterprise website which discusses the integration of the Business Objects sales force with the SAP sales force. In my mind that makes perfect sense. Both product suites tend to pitch at the same level in the enterprise, so it makes sense to discuss both SAP and Business Objects solutions in the same conversation.