SAP acquires Sybase - a new round in the fight for large customers and (most likely) leadership in cloud computing
Today came the news that SAP acquires Sybase for 5.8 billion dollars (news on Habré , an article on Yahoo Finance , the original press release here ).
This is quite a landmark deal, although at first glance it may seem wrong - Sybase, according to various estimates, owns 2-3% of the database market, for which give 6 billion (especially in the current economic situation)? Of course, statistics on market shares are generally crafty, but fact is a fact - now is not the best of times for Sybase.
At the same time, Sybase is the carrier of the very "secret" knowledge of relational databases. The basics of relational DBMS and practical successful implementations have settled over the past 20 years, and the main changes in the DBMS over the last decade are connected with attempts to maximize the use of computing power and finally solve the problem of horizontal scaling.
The fundamentals were and remain unchanged, and Sybase has extensive experience in kernel development.
It is appropriate to recall that the first versions of MSSQL were based on the Sybase codebase, and that it was Sybase that was one of the first to start actively promoting the idea of data warehousing.
And now we see how an ERP company acquires a company that manufactures database management systems and data warehousing tools. Earlier, the same company acquired Business Objects, the manufacturer of Crystal Reports. What is behind this?
Obviously, this indicates the intention to build a full stack of products and to make SAP independent of database vendors. But is it only?
')
Explaining to shareholders the cost of 6 billion in competition with Oracle and the desire to make a profit, including licenses from a DBMS, is of course possible.
However, it is known that a large number of large SAP implementations occur on Oracle, and there are no particular reasons why implementing partners and the entire existing ecosystem should be rebuilt with Sybase in order to “recapture” the spent ~ 6 billion.
Therefore, besides the desire to become a mono-vendor, there should be other explanations, why buy a deeply technological company that produces quite expensive commercial DBMS (and competes not only with Oracle and MSSQL, but also with completely free open-source DBMS Firebird and PostgreSQL, not to mention already about MySQL, which is actively trying to get into the corporate and ISV market).
I think the main reason is the desire to “get around the corner” of cloud vendors, primarily Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft.
Of course, SAP has a wealth of experience in business solutions, and therefore its chances of creating a truly powerful cloud from its ERP solutions that will satisfy corporate clients not only from micro and small business, but also middle peasants and some big ones are really great.
Moreover, aiming mainly at the large and medium segment, SAP may not even particularly care about its own data centers - their customers usually have their own data center (or they will gladly build it, following the CIO's desire to do something more and significant).
To create your “cloud”, in addition to iron and qualified admins, you need
a) virtualization and cloud infrastructure management tools
b) technical infrastructure: cloud-adapted DBMS, development tools, etc.
c) in fact, expertise in business logic, which will be applications in the cloud, leased
SAP goes "from the end" - c) is, b) is acquired.
No virtualization. It may seem that this is a big minus, but on the other hand, we are now witnessing an increasingly cheaper virtualization tools, open solutions are growing and getting stronger (OpenVZ, etc.). At some point, the number of vendors and proposals for virtualization will reach such a value that there will be more than enough people willing to sell out or enter into a strategic alliance with a player like SAP.
Yes, this is not a quick path. But remember the joke about the old bull? "We SLOWLY go down the hill ..."
UPDATE
Cnews has published an article in which the acquisition of Sybase is justified by the acquisition of mobile applications for the iPhone and Blackberry.
Perhaps so, and perhaps - it's red herring :)
Mobile devices come and go, every 2-3 years your fetish (remember the Nokia banana from the 1st Matrix?), And SQL was, is and will be.
This is quite a landmark deal, although at first glance it may seem wrong - Sybase, according to various estimates, owns 2-3% of the database market, for which give 6 billion (especially in the current economic situation)? Of course, statistics on market shares are generally crafty, but fact is a fact - now is not the best of times for Sybase.
At the same time, Sybase is the carrier of the very "secret" knowledge of relational databases. The basics of relational DBMS and practical successful implementations have settled over the past 20 years, and the main changes in the DBMS over the last decade are connected with attempts to maximize the use of computing power and finally solve the problem of horizontal scaling.
The fundamentals were and remain unchanged, and Sybase has extensive experience in kernel development.
It is appropriate to recall that the first versions of MSSQL were based on the Sybase codebase, and that it was Sybase that was one of the first to start actively promoting the idea of data warehousing.
And now we see how an ERP company acquires a company that manufactures database management systems and data warehousing tools. Earlier, the same company acquired Business Objects, the manufacturer of Crystal Reports. What is behind this?
Obviously, this indicates the intention to build a full stack of products and to make SAP independent of database vendors. But is it only?
')
Explaining to shareholders the cost of 6 billion in competition with Oracle and the desire to make a profit, including licenses from a DBMS, is of course possible.
However, it is known that a large number of large SAP implementations occur on Oracle, and there are no particular reasons why implementing partners and the entire existing ecosystem should be rebuilt with Sybase in order to “recapture” the spent ~ 6 billion.
Therefore, besides the desire to become a mono-vendor, there should be other explanations, why buy a deeply technological company that produces quite expensive commercial DBMS (and competes not only with Oracle and MSSQL, but also with completely free open-source DBMS Firebird and PostgreSQL, not to mention already about MySQL, which is actively trying to get into the corporate and ISV market).
I think the main reason is the desire to “get around the corner” of cloud vendors, primarily Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft.
Of course, SAP has a wealth of experience in business solutions, and therefore its chances of creating a truly powerful cloud from its ERP solutions that will satisfy corporate clients not only from micro and small business, but also middle peasants and some big ones are really great.
Moreover, aiming mainly at the large and medium segment, SAP may not even particularly care about its own data centers - their customers usually have their own data center (or they will gladly build it, following the CIO's desire to do something more and significant).
To create your “cloud”, in addition to iron and qualified admins, you need
a) virtualization and cloud infrastructure management tools
b) technical infrastructure: cloud-adapted DBMS, development tools, etc.
c) in fact, expertise in business logic, which will be applications in the cloud, leased
SAP goes "from the end" - c) is, b) is acquired.
No virtualization. It may seem that this is a big minus, but on the other hand, we are now witnessing an increasingly cheaper virtualization tools, open solutions are growing and getting stronger (OpenVZ, etc.). At some point, the number of vendors and proposals for virtualization will reach such a value that there will be more than enough people willing to sell out or enter into a strategic alliance with a player like SAP.
Yes, this is not a quick path. But remember the joke about the old bull? "We SLOWLY go down the hill ..."
UPDATE
Cnews has published an article in which the acquisition of Sybase is justified by the acquisition of mobile applications for the iPhone and Blackberry.
Perhaps so, and perhaps - it's red herring :)
Mobile devices come and go, every 2-3 years your fetish (remember the Nokia banana from the 1st Matrix?), And SQL was, is and will be.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/93444/
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