Taking a page out of rival Oracle Corp.'s playbook, Germany'sSAP AG announced late Sunday that it had agreed to acquire France'sbusiness intelligence (BI) and analytics powerhouse BusinessObjects S.A. for $6.8 billion. The surprise move is almost certainto trigger further consolidation in the near future as smallerplayers and large ones, such as Microsoft Corp., reassess theirstrategies to take on the established enterprise resource planning(ERP) giants.

Not only does this acquisition echo Oracle's $3.3 billionpurchase of business performance management (BPM) and BI leaderHyperion in February for $3.3 billion, some consultants see it as aconcession by SAP that organic growth alone will not be able toproduce enough growth to meet the company's ambitious goal todouble its customer base to 100,000 by 2010. “SAP has alwaysinsisted that growth would be internal. Just last spring, the chiefexecutive told us that the company could not justify an acquisitionof this magnitude,” says Paul Hamerman, Forrester Research Inc.vice president of enterprise applications. Oracle CEO LarryEllison, by contrast, has always boasted of his company acquisitionlust.

“It's interesting to see two very different strategies bring SAPand Oracle to the same place,” says Bruce Myers, managing directorat financial advisory firm AlixPartners. “SAP was always promotingits “Built by SAP” slogan, promising all the functionality in oneintegrated package.”