Blog: Oracle Rumored To Be Eyeing SAP Buyout

Here's a boost for adrenaline junkies: Reports surfaced Wednesday that Oracle has set its acquisitive eye on SAP.

That would be S(-full stop-)A-(full-stop-)P(-full stop), the ERP giant. Or, as Oracle chairman Larry Ellison has taken to calling it: "Sap." As in rhymes with "tap."

In the words of the CBRonline staff writer:

A PR person displayed the headline on her Blackberry last night causing me to nearly cough up a lung. How could an SAP-Oracle combo, a merging of the number one and two enterprise software players in the universe, pass regulatory muster? The short answer: It couldn't.

Here's the play-by-play:

Knee jerk reaction: "B.S."

Second reaction: "Hmmmm, This is Larry Ellison we're talking about."

Many immediately discounted his PeopleSoft bid as a PR stunt or a corporate dirty trick. Well guess what? It took.

Even though I always thought PeopleSoft "Oracle was a do-able deal, the Siebel Systems buy seemed implausable. Wrong again. Siebel is part-and-parcel of Oracle.

Will SAP join the stable? It strains credulity. But strange things come out of Redwood Shores.