Closing Frictionless
I've not heard any noise recently about where SAP is in closing its acquisition of Frictionless Commerce. If anyone has any good scoop, please chime in! But given that acquisition and due-diligence work is not the same core competency at SAP as it is at Oracle, I'm not surprised that we've not seen any news recently on the deal (nor am I worried if the closing date falls past the July guidance). Still, I wonder what -- if anything -- could be next up in the Waldorf SRM shopping cart. Might SAP's next move be to buy a real spend visibility solution? I don't know about you, but BW just does not do it for me. And I'd bet that there are a good many folks inside SAP who understand procurement that feel the same way.
- Jason Busch
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If one believes the conventional wisdom that this is all that spend analysis amounts to, one might as well leverage the data warehouse and reporting tools that one already has. Taking that point of view to its logical conclusion, SAP should hire 10 guys in Bangalore to crunch data like the other providers. And presto! A new BW-based "spend analysis" product is born!
The deal did close on June 5, which is very fast given the announcement in mid-May. The company integration process is running smoothly. While SAP tends to make targeted acquisitions, I don't know where its reputation for "not knowing how to acquire companies" came from given my experience.
Soon, customers and prospects will be briefed on product roadmap and integration scenarios to various SAP modules and releases.
The response from the market has been very positive and we expect to have the Frictionless products in the hands of many more companies.