It is, though, just a bet, and despite a lot of financial modelling before the change, he admits that he can only guess at the outcome.

ECONOMIST: Web sales

Obviously, Sybase is not enough to make SAP entirely relevant in scope and scale (and it goes without saying that in this land of giants, Sybase was not large enough to survive on its own.) But it picks up a solid asset, with businesses in financial modelling and mobile databases that are essential for SAP to stay in the game.

FORBES: SAP's Big Problem

We conclude with an argument that, in the specific case of the global financial markets, there is an urgent need to develop major national strategic modelling and predictive simulation capabilities, comparable to national-scale meteorological monitoring and modelling capabilities.

FORBES: No, You Can't Build a Big Computer to Model the Financial Markets