SAP buying TomorrowNow

Filed in archive Technology on January 20, 2005

Jeff and Steve are reporting on this well-timed and seemingly very clever move from SAP:

"All of this is relevant in the post Oraclesoft merger questions because as Shai Agassi pointed out in a WSJ article yesterday, "software companies don't own customers, we serve them." Of course, this was in relation to the announcement that SAP is acquiring TomorrowNow, a company that delivered support services for Peoplesoft customers. TomorrowNow is interesting because they were known for being particularly aggressive in their competition with Peoplesoft for maintenance business, in effect competing with Peoplesoft in an area that no enterprise vendor is accustomed to having competition in. To be sure, SAP's acquisition of TomorrowNow is an effort to provide an attractive transition plan for Peoplesoft customers who want to switch to SAP, but there's nothing that would convince me that a vendor shouldn't consider providing support services for competing products."

I must say for such a huge company SAP has become they are always worth a surprising move.