Madan Sheina
Business Objects - life after Liautaud
Bernard Liautaud, the co-founder of French business intelligence (BI) firm Business Objects, officially tendered his resignation as chairman and chief strategy officer on 30 January, following the closure of the company's recent $6.8bn acquisition by SAP. Liautaud will continue to serve as an 'advisor' for SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann and is likely to join SAP's supervisory board this summer.Comment: Liautaud's resignation, which has been on the cards ever since SAP first announced its takeover bid last October, is perhaps a more symbolic handover of Business Objects to SAP than the closure of the deal on 18 January.Liautaud co-founded Business Objects in 1990 and provided the vision and driving force behind the company's trademark product innovations. He helped to push BI to what he believes is 'a tipping point' of wide-scale enterprise adoption and branched the company's strategy out into complementary markets such as performance management and enterprise information management. For a man of his experience, Liautaud's departure is certainly a big loss for SAP, raising questions about who will now work on a joint BI strategy going forwards and whether Business Objects' can retain its innovative edge as both companies focus on product and organisational integration.When Liautaud relinquished the CEO reins to John Schwarz in September 2005, Business Objects was the subject of strong takeover rumour, with Oracle and SAP named as potential suitors. If Business Objects was seriously considering an exit strategy back then - but don't expect the company's senior officers to ever admit it publicly - the choice of his successor, John Schwarz, made perfect sense. Business Objects explained at the time that the CEO swap was intended to 'bring it to the next level'. Hidden away in that purposely vague statement was a coded message that the company is being groomed for a sale.Clearly Schwarz certainly knows a thing or two about managing big merger and acquisition deals as well as a broad product line. During Schwarz's tenure as president of security software provider Symantec he ran six lines of business and also played a key role in assisting in the merger with Veritas.Schwarz is now officially CEO of SAP's Business Objects division. Although his senior executive credentials and competency are without question, he's still a relative newcomer to the BI space and a long way from being considered a visionary. Knowing how SAP works, setting a BI agenda going forwards will be done through committee - with other SAP divisions and personalities involved as well. With Liautaud now out of the frame, a key influencer in setting that agenda could be Doug Merritt, a seasoned SAP corporate officer who is joining the Business Objects organisation. Merritt is heading-up development of so-called 'business optimisation applications', which seems to be where Business Objects BI technologies intersect with SAP's enterprise applications. However, don't be surprised if Merritt broadens his role and eventually becomes the most vocal front-man for the company's BI push. Merritt has already articulated some detailed and forward-looking insights as to where SAP and Business Objects are heading.Pushing the envelope of innovation will probably take a back seat in the next year as both companies work out the mechanics of operating as a joint company and tackle a tall order of product integration and alignment matters. That work has already kicked off with the announcement in early January of an initial set of jointly integrated products for financial performance management, governance, risk and compliance, and visualisation and reporting.After a lengthy and rich 20-plus year career, that also included stints at Oracle (marketing) and a deputy science attaché for the French embassy in Washington DC, Liautaud is now free to enjoy the fruits of his success. Dubbed by journalists as 'France's finest export and one of the few people that worked for Larry Ellison and lived long enough to talk about it', Liautaud has become somewhat of a European IT icon, and is more or less guaranteed a seat on SAP's board. Other IT firms may tap his industry experience and vision in a similar vein. Equally if Schwarz was really brought on board to sell the company then his job is done and could well move on as well - perhaps within the next 12 to 18 months which seems to be the typical 'waiting period' for CEOs of acquired companies jumping ship.
