SAP has confirmed that it will acquire Sybase for $5.8 billion, a deal that not only includes the database company but also its $500 million in debt.
“This acquisition will bring SAP at par with Oracle’s portfolio of being a database supplier as well as application software supplier. Until now, SAP has been riding on DB2 and Oracle DBMS engines,” said a commentator, continuing, “…Oracle was having a tough time balancing the ‘friend-foe’ relationship – it was a friendly customer of Oracle’s DBMS, it also competed fiercely on application software with Oracle. Now the path will be clear. SAP will supply the entire stack, from its own DBMS engine (Sybase) to middleware and Application software.” |