Business Objects is looking for a buyer: report
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Business Objects  , a  French-American business intelligence software maker, is  looking for a buyer and has appointed Goldman Sachs to find an  investor, Le Figaro newspaper said.
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IBM has put its PC business up for sale, according to a story published on Friday on Web site of The New York Times.
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IBM  is reportedly in talks to sell its personal computer business in a deal that could be worth up to &#36;2 billion and would cap a gradual withdrawal from the business it helped to pioneer in 1981.
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IBM Corp. has put its PC business up for sale, according to a story published on Friday on the Web site of The New York Times.
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Telecommunications equipment maker Avaya Inc.  is in talks with private equity and strategic bidders about selling all or part of the company, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
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A proliferation of exhibition halls has led to a buyerÂs market for trade associations and corporate planners.
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Mark Hall reports on the TCO reasons for buying business-specific rather than consumer handhelds.
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International Business Machines Corp. has put its personal computing business up for sale in a deal that could be worth as much as $2 billion, the New York Times reported on Friday.
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The BBC has written to more than 25 potential bidders and organisations interested in its commercial assets, soliciting their views on the future of the business.
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Investor's Business Daily - Some free open-source software aside, business software has been sold through licensing agreements for packaged products or via Web-based subscriptions -- until now.
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IBM, whose first PC in 1981 moved personal computing out of the hobby shop and into the corporate and consumer mainstream, has put the business up for sale, people close to the negotiations said Thursday.
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The amusement park company may be looking to sell itself.
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(InfoWorld) - Business Objects has started to roll out a full suite of business intelligence (BI) software in the form of an online service, initially for customers using Salesforce.com applications. The service allows customers to use Business Objects' BI tools without having to maintain the software themselves or buy extra servers on which to run it. Business Objects maintains a copy of each customer's data in its own data centers, and employees access the data and BI applications through a Web browser. Business Objects took itsÂ first steps in on-demand softwareÂ last April with the release of crystalreports.com, for sharing reports online. That service has attracted about 50,000 customers, the company said. The new service announced Monday, called Intelligence OnDemand, includes a broader set of applications for formatted reporting, running ad hoc queries and analysis, and displaying BI "dashboards" on a user's desktop. The first version of the service, available now, is for customers who have data stored in Salesforce.com's online CRM applications. Business Objects will load a copy of the customer's Salesforce data to its own data centers and build a data warehouse that customers can use to run their BI queries. The service is aimed at sales and marketing staff and business analysts at companies with a high volume of Salesforce data, and is the first in suite of similar services that Business Objects plans to roll out, the company said. It includes on-demand versions of its Crystal Reports, Crystal Xcelsius and Web Intelligence products. Business Objects has staked outÂ an early lead in on-demand BI, although SAS Institute and some smaller BI vendors are also getting into the game. Proponents of such services say they helps customers to cut costs because they don't have to manage applications themselves or buy servers on which to run them. Business Objects said it's new service will take the "heavy lifting" out of building and maintaining a data warehouse. The trade-off is that customers must trust a third party to look after and provide access to their sensitive company data. Business Objects representatives weren't available to give pricing for the new service, which will be unveiled at an event in California later on Monday to coincide with the start of Salesforce.com's Dreamforce user conference in San Francisco. Some more information is at Business Objects new On Demand Web site. The company also opened an online store on Monday where customers can buy external market information, such as sales data for other companies' products, and include it in their data analysis. The information comes from firms such as Thomson Financial, eBay, and Dun & Bradstreet. Customers can buy individual reports from $150, or sign up for a subscription. Â
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Business Objects reported a 19 percent rise in revenue for the third quarter, driven by services, but earnings were dragged down by a shortfall in license revenue, recent acquisitions and legal costs.While the income figures are broadly in line with preliminary results announced on Oct. 7, the company had expected its earnings to be better. The results come about two weeks after&#160;SAP announced plans to acquire Business Objects&#160;for $6.7 billion.Earnings for the quarter fell to $6.4 million, or $0.07 per share, from $19.6 million, or $0.21 per share, a year earlier, Business Objects said. It had predicted earnings of $0.16 to $0.20 per share.The earnings reported include a charge of around $7 million, equivalent to $0.05 per share, to settle litigation with Decision Warehouse. Business Objects had previously honored Decision Warehouse as its top distributor in Latin America: the company now resells products from&#160;Hyperion, which was recently bought by Oracle, and&#160;BEA Systems, which Oracle is trying to buy.Revenue for the quarter, which ended Sept. 30, was $369 million, up 19 percent compared to a year earlier. The growth was driven by revenue from services such as product maintenance, up 27 percent, and consulting and training, up 34 percent year on year.Growth in license revenue lagged, up just 6 percent compared to a year earlier, although license revenue from all product lines continued to grow, the company said.The&#160;acquisition of Cartesis, completed on June 1, and of&#160;Inxight Software, completed on July 3, added around $21 million in revenue for the quarter.Business Objects also profited from exchange rate fluctuations: while total revenue grew 19 percent year on year, at constant currency rates it grew just 15 percent, while license revenue grew 2 percent at constant currency rates.Business Objects warned that there&#39;s more uncertainty ahead -- and not just because of SAP&#39;s bid for the company, announced Oct. 7.The unexpected shortfall in third-quarter licensing revenue, added to uncertainty about customers&#39; future spending ahead of the merger, prompted the company to withdraw previously issued financial guidance.
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Announcements abounded: one acquistion, a potential sale, and the first-quarter earning report.
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IBM may need to do some creative deal making in order to sell PC business to China&#39;s Lenovo. By Robert Cyran, Breakingviews. LONDON (Breakingviews) - It&#39;s no surprise IBM is in talks to sell its PC business
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InfoWorld - French software maker Business Objects released the first of three new versions of its business intelligence software tailored for small to medium-size companies, a market area poised for growth, the company said Monday.