by Martin Veitch

Microsoft buying SAP could be verboten

Opinion
May 11, 20091 min
IT Strategy

With no fresh sign of action on the Cisco-EMC front and enboldened by Oracle-Sun, Open Text-Vignette and Micro Focus-Borland, rumour-mongers are at it again, suggesting Microsoft could snap up SAP.

A few observations: This would be by far the biggest IT sector acquisition ever; Microsoft has never done a mega-merger; SAP might make things hostile; cross-continetal combinations are tougher.

However: Microsoft has talked merger with SAP before; the Yahoo attempted buy showed it is ready to spend; Microsoft needs to grow beyond organic means; Steve Ballmer’s comments didn’t go a long way to downplay the chatter.

The big caveat: this ‘deal’ might be too big for regulators to swallow.