So: it's SAP, for $6.8bn!
After years of rumors, the news is finally here: it's SAP for 4.8 billion euros. This will be the biggest acquisition SAP has ever done, and the biggest in the BI industry.
In an interesting twist, it's almost a Business Objects acquisition -- it is proposed that the company be run as a "stand-alone" entity managed by current Business Objects CEO John Schwarz, and the team that looks after previous SAP acquisitions of OutlookSoft and Pilot will be reporting to him. And there are potentially other existing BI-related SAP technologies that might also fit nicely with the new organization.
It will apparently take a couple of quarters before transaction can be closed.