Apr 23 2008 8:01AM GMT

Business Objects apologizes to customers

Jack Danahy Profile: JackDanahy

SAP’s Business Objects unit suffered a black eye recently. DMReview.com was forwarded a copy of an email from Business Objects to some of its customers that read, in part:

“As we look back the past several weeks, it is painfully obvious that our internal system issues have brought challenges and unwanted distractions to your ongoing operation of Business Objects software solutions…many customers have not been able to receive our technologies in a timely manner. You have our most sincere apology…”

The email was signed by Pascal Clement, SAP/Business Objects’ VP of Enterprise Information Management. After the email came out, Business Objects went into damage control mode with DMReview by issuing a statement to the effect that only a few (they didn’t say how many) Business Objects customers had been impacted. There was also no clarification on what had caused the service delivery problems.

Combined with the fact that “the Business Objects sales organization may have missed its Q1 targets by a wide margin in North America,” according to analyst Patrick Walravens of JMP Securities, the service failures are bad news for both SAP and Business Objects–especially when you consider how well Business Objects’ old rival, Cognos, seems to be doing at IBM after Big Blue snapped it up earlier this year. IBM’s software revenue is up $4.8 billion, or 14 percent, year-over-year, and IBM executives named Cognos as a big part of that success.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor