SAP's business user organization to move to Business Objects

SAP on Tuesday sent out a notice to employees that the deck chairs will be realigned following its megamerger with Business Objects, according to sources close to the company.

SAP's business user organization, which is responsible for information worker and organizational performance applications, will be moved over to Business Objects, the sources said.

In some ways, that should come as no surprise.

SAP, as part of its $6.8 billion Business Objects merger announcement in October, said Doug Merritt, the head of its Business User Development and a corporate officer, would join the Business Objects group and report to Business Objects Chief Executive John Schwarz, rather than Henning Kagermann, SAP's chief executive.

Post-merger, Business Objects will continue to operate as a standalone business under the SAP Group.

SAP's business user organization, according to its presentation to financial analysts in Vienna last year, includes Duet, enterprise search, mobile, Adobe Systems forms, and analytics dashboard, as well as governance, risk, and compliance software and corporate performance management software.

Kagermann and Business Objects executives plan to chew the fat with the press on this topic in greater detail Wednesday.

UPDATE: January 16, 2008, 1:30 pm (PT)

And chew they did. Kagermann, along with Leo Apotheker, SAP deputy CEO, and Business Object's Schwarz, offered up their vision and road map of the combined company. SAP on Tuesday closed its merger with Business Objects.

SAP and Business Objects plan to jointly introduce nine products by the end of this month, of which two will specifically be targeted at mid-size to small companies. Those two products include its SAP Business All-in-One with BusinessObjects Edge Standard package, which focuses on delivering a business process platform with comprehensive business intelligence, and also the Crystal Reports Server Package, which is a type of reporting technology.

The other seven products include: a financial performance management package geared toward chief financial officers, a.k.a. head bean counters; a governance, risk and compliance package for tackling regulatory issues; a visualization and reporting package; enterprise query, reporting and analysis package; data integration and data quality management package; and, finally, a master data services package.

With Business Objects, a pioneer in the business intelligence arena, SAP is looking to build its fourth pillar in its four-pillar growth strategy, said Kagermann. SAP has viewed business intelligence as key to their strategy of maintaining a high growth rate, given the recent rapid acceleration SAP has seen in that market.