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wanderer
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作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
Microsoft, SAP Teach a Lesson: Eat or Be Eaten
June 9, 2004
Microsoft Corp.'s newly disclosed flirtation with SAP AG may have been only that. But some people on Wall Street are drawing a big lesson: Four major players have emerged in business software, and many smaller vendors will be gobbled up or forced to change the way they do business.
The software-industry consolidation predicted by Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Larry Ellison when he launched a hostile bid last June for rival PeopleSoft Inc. has been slowed by antitrust and other concerns. Microsoft cited the complexity of integrating software code and programming talent as the reason it pulled out of merger discussions with SAP this spring.
But continued sluggishness in sales of corporate information technology is beginning to break that logjam. The emerging standard-setters -- Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and International Business Machines Corp. -- now are considering deals to solidify their positions in the technology infrastructure and application programs needed by businesses large and small.
"There is room for a good handful of key global players, like in the car industry," SAP Chief Executive Henning Kagermann said in an interview. "We want to be one of the big ones."
The smaller companies, some analysts say, need to figure out how they fit in those major camps, including considering takeover possibilities. In one indication that slowing sales growth is prompting change, investors are starting to reassess how they value software companies in the stock market, paying less attention to sales of new software licenses and more to the recurring streams of income that companies receive from existing customers. That is akin to how investors view, say, cable-television companies.
"If you are not IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, you are going to have a hard time competing," says Jason Maynard, an analyst with Merrill Lynch.
The disclosure this week of Microsoft's discussions with SAP has renewed speculation about how the software giant might use its $56.4 billion in cash to revive revenue growth. The contemplated acquisition of SAP, assuming a 20% takeover premium and subtracting SAP's roughly $3.5 billion in cash, would have totaled, conveniently enough, about $56 billion. Rick Sherlund, an analyst with Goldman Sachs Group, estimates such a cash takeover would dilute Microsoft's estimated 2004 earnings of $1.30 a share by about 2%.
But such a deal also would provide strategic benefits in Microsoft's competition with both IBM and Oracle to deliver the software "stack" needed to run modern businesses. Microsoft has been going it largely alone in promoting a set of software standards dubbed ".Net," while IBM, Oracle and SAP have aligned themselves with a rival approach based on the Java programming technology from Sun Microsystems Inc. SAP, with its leading market share, could immediately shift the balance of power in favor of .Net.
In the aftermath of the SAP talks, Microsoft is left with smaller targets, analysts say. Mr. Maynard speculates Microsoft may pursue business-software companies such as Siebel Systems Inc. and Lawson Software Inc., or even service companies such as Automatic Data Processing Inc., known for payroll processing, or Affiliated Computer Services Inc., which provides technology outsourcing.
Terry Blake, a spokesman for Lawson, says, "Being acquired is not part of our strategy, but we have to recognize that there are big players with a lot of cash out there," including Microsoft. A spokeswoman for Affiliated says no deal with Microsoft is in the works. A spokesman for Siebel had no comment. ADP couldn't be reached.
Any acquisition by Microsoft is almost certain to face antitrust scrutiny of the sort that has bogged down Oracle's $7.7 billion bid for PeopleSoft, now the subject of a trial in San Francisco. "It's inconceivable to me that the No. 1 software company in the world could buy the No. 3 software company in the world -- the regulators would be all over this," says Mr. Ellison, speaking yesterday at D: All Things Digital, a conference hosted by Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
The Justice Department argues that Microsoft isn't a competitor to Oracle for software sold to large corporate customers, a finding that could benefit Microsoft in reviews of future acquisitions, Mr. Sherlund notes.
Mr. Sherlund says that an IBM purchase of SAP would be a way to defend the rest of IBM's software business as the number of independent applications vendors shrinks. IBM several years ago exited from the applications business in favor of selling technology and services to help customers integrate offerings from other companies. An IBM spokesman declined to comment.
Another frequently discussed possibility is an acquisition by Oracle of BEA Systems Inc., which competes with IBM and Microsoft in a product category known as middleware. Mr. Ellison has expressed interest in buying BEA in the past year but complained that the price was too high. BEA's market value has declined to $3.6 billion from about $5 billion over the past few months, however. Officials at BEA couldn't be reached for comment.
BEA's stock slide reflects changes affecting many smaller companies. When the business-software market was growing fast, investors watched companies' quarterly reports for increases in sales of new software licenses. New software sales were considered the best indication of a company's prospects for revenue growth.
But the financial pressures -- only now easing -- of the long slump in corporate tech spending have made more tech buyers dig in their heels about paying for new software. So software companies change their business models, gradually adding more services and subscription schemes for existing products.
As a result, the tally of new software sales has become less useful for forecasting a company's performance. Instead, some investors are looking at software companies in much the way they look at cable-TV and wireless-service providers -- valuing them for the stable revenue stream they receive from existing customers rather than their potential to sign up new ones.
For software companies, such revenue comes in the form of "maintenance" fees, annual payments for software updates, bug fixes and other product support. Maintenance fees generally range from 15% to 25% of the original license fee.
Goldman's Mr. Sherlund goes so far as to say that for many software companies, "they would be better off if they forgot about new customers and concentrated on profitable maintenance revenues."
作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 ZT: 怪不得微软舍不得动那些现金，原来盖兹攒钱想买个“大件” -- wanderer - (6649 Byte) 2004-6-09 周三, 16:41 (1971 reads)
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