Looks like Lawson is a bit too expensive for the big guys at the moment the analysts are saying it does not look like there will be any offers for Lawson ERP this year.
There was talk in 2004 that Oracle was going to have a pop at Lawson but they bought Retek instead.
"You never say never, but I'd be surprised if it gets taken out this year," said David Rudow, a senior analyst who follows the software industry at Piper Jaffray & Co in Boca Raton.
Lawson is too expensive for private equity buyers, and its human resources products overlap too much with Oracle's human resources software to fill a need there, said Prem Lalvani Jr., an analyst at the Stanford Group.
Plus Workday from Dave Dufield is looking to release software targeted at the HR market might make a difference on the purchase of second/third tier applications.
The other goliath of business software, Germany-based SAP, isn't that aggressive about buying large companies, Lalvani said. IBM isn't interested in entering the applications market and Lawson's Java-based technology would make it hard for Microsoft to digest, he added.
Interest could perk up next year, though, if Lawson successfully acquires Swedish software firm Intentia this spring and shows solid performance. Execution is the key, the market is wide open.
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