Business Objects, a French $1.3 billion provider of businessintelligence (BI) software, announced on April 23 that it wasacquiring privately held Cartesis S.A. for $300 million. Cartesis,an enterprise performance management company, provides financialreporting, consolidations and planning capabilities, as well as anew governance, risk and compliance (GRC) portfolio. Cartesis, withannual revenues of $125 million, was founded in 1990 and has 1,300customers worldwide. The acquisition comes less than a week afterOracle Corp. closed on its $3.3 billion for Hyperion Solutions.

“Overall, it's a good pickup for Business Objects,” observesJohn Hagerty, vice president of research for AMR Research. With theCartesis acquisition, “Business Objects has sent a clear signalthat it's planning to grow–and remain independent rather than beacquired by the Oracles of the world,” he adds.

Hagerty notes that a few years ago Business Objects had kickedthe tires on Cartesis and a few other GRC vendors, but ended upbuying SRC Software (which is now renamed Business ObjectsPlanning). “At that point, Business Objects felt that to get [to]the CFO, it needed more about planning,” Hagerty says. Now,Business Objects recognizes that the gap it must fill is infinancial reporting and GRC space, he notes. “Especially on therisk side, we're seeing a lot more appetite from CFOs andcompanies–above and beyond the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance issues,”Hagerty concludes.