Microsoft-SAP would be Oracle’s worst nightmare

Just as Apple make their money out of being consumer friendly,
Microsoft make theirs by being business friendly.  This is why it
intrigues me that they are trying to buy Yahoo! to compete with
Google.  This is a consumer-focused play and the New York Times
thinks it is completely the wrong strategy.  Randall Stross of the
NYTimes states it is the pursuit of "an old-style Internet asset, in
decline, and at a premium", and says they'd be much better off making
an Oracle-style expansion in business software by buying SAP. 

Funnily
enough, by following Oracle's acquisitive approach to buying
like-minded software firms in the business space, Microsoft could
produce “Oracle’s worst nightmare” as a Microsoft-SAP merger might
actually start to displace Oracle's dominance in this space. 

Oo-errr.

I
was then discussing this with a banking colleague yesterday who has
dealt with all the major players.  He's an old contact from my Unisys
days and has made a major investment in Unisys services across the
bank.  He wonders about their future and said to me "at 4 bucks a
share, it's amazing no-one has tried to acquire them".

Funnily enough, Unisys have been asking this question too and have apparently started to explore options with Bear Stearns, their investment bankers, to do the same thing.

So,
a Microsoft-SAP-Unisys integrated business-focused software powerhouse,
combining software development and delivery, could be a much better
combination than a Microsoft-Yahoo! feeble consumer-annoying software
confusion.