SAP updates hosted offering

Financial software provider SAP is venturing further into the online hosted data centre field with the introduction of an enhanced package of its Business ByDesign offering, states Computing.co.uk.

The updated on-demand offering, available online and with a monthly, rather than annual, subscription fee, is expected to reduce operational IT costs for customers, with the target market being small to medium enterprises.

2.0 Business ByDesign will now offer 35 more modules including business intelligence (BI), customer relationship management and procure-to-pay services.

A San Francisco-based analyst suggests that IBM's planned acquisition of BI software vendors SPSS is not a done deal, reports InformationWeek.

"Conversations lead us to believe that SPSS could get another bid," says Cowen & Co's Peter Goldmacher in an investor's note.

Goldmacher wrote that "conversations with industry luminaries" indicate IBM's $1.2 billion bid for SPSS was a "dramatic premium" to avoid a bidding war with other interested parties, including SAP and Hewlett-Packard.

Knowledge management company Idox has merged its recruitment division, TFPL, with Intelligent Resources, a specialist permanent recruitment business, says InformationWorldReview.

The recruitment business will initially operate as TFPL Intelligent Resources, and build on the strength of both brands, TFPL told IWR.

The combined business aims at offering the market significant improvements in all of its combined service lines offering consistent and permanent recruitment solutions to complementary market segments.