SAP to acquire Qualtrics • Hacker News Board

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#31

Post by snorremd » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 9:09 AM UTC

sbr464 wrote: post #30

whoisjuan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From all the S-1s I have read, this seems like a typical disclaimer. More than anything is a guidance on the use of OSS and the risk that comes from using non-propietary technology (which includes releasing software written on top of the questioned technology). The way I see it, it's more of an indication on potential future litigation (e.g: Google vs Oracle), not so much of the cost of re-writing software, although…

Sorry, but your info is a bit out of date. The latest Wordpress Gutenberg uses React.

I even suspect Automattic's initial choice to not use React because of the open source license + patents clause was a direct catalyst for Facebook to change the React license, thereby allowing Automattic to use React. Wordpress drives a substantial percentage of the world's websites, so it was probably in Facebook's interest that React was used in project Gutenberg.

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#32

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

snorremd wrote: post #31

sbr464 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but your info is a bit out of date. The latest Wordpress Gutenberg uses React.

I even suspect Automattic's initial choice to not use React because of the open source license + patents clause was a direct catalyst for Facebook to change the React license, thereby allowing Automattic to use React. Wordpress drives a substantial percentage of the world's websites, so it was probably in Facebook's interest that React was used in project Gutenberg.

[deleted]

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#33

Post by majewsky » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 10:02 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #22

AndyNemmity wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the acquisition, several have went well.

Do you have any examples?

Acquisitions like Concur/Hybris/Successfactors are a big part of why SAP is currently doing quite well, and the board acknowledges as much.

Disclosure: I work at SAP and hold a few shares.

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#34

Post by swarnie_ » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 10:29 AM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #33

gaius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples?

Acquisitions like Concur/Hybris/Successfactors are a big part of why SAP is currently doing quite well, and the board acknowledges as much. Disclosure: I work at SAP and hold a few shares.

Slightly off topic, what's the culture like at SAP? We've recently picked up a few top level SAP bods to run our smaller business, the changes have been both rapid and dramatic.

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#35

Post by shrikant » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

mrkstu wrote: post #26

Biggest exit by a Silicon Slopes (Utah) company (by far)? Ancestry.com was 1.6B, Omniture 1.8B. Plural sight and Domo maybe next?

Pluralsight has already IPO'ed -- isn't that considered an exit event?

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#36

Post by majewsky » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

swarnie_ wrote: post #34

majewsky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquisitions like Concur/Hybris/Successfactors are a big part of why SAP is currently doing quite well, and the board acknowledges as much. Disclosure: I work at SAP and hold a few shares.

Slightly off topic, what's the culture like at SAP? We've recently picked up a few top level SAP bods to run our smaller business, the changes have been both rapid and dramatic.

I'm at a mid-sized German office (in Dresden, about 500 employees), and it's a pleasant work culture overall. Sure, there's ample bureaucracy and office politics (as with any large company), but I can easily see myself working here until retirement if the work continues to challenge me (in a positive way) as it does now.

It probably helps that my direct manager is shielding us from a lot of the bureaucracy and allowing us lots of individual freedom wrt technical decisions (our team sometimes feels more like a small startup embedded within the company). But people from other teams seem (mostly) happy with their positions as well.

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#37

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

mzkply wrote: post #25

gaius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples?

Concur & Hybris come to mind

Ariba as well - although they haven't touched it much due to it being a cash cow.

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#38

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 1:28 PM UTC

swarnie_ wrote: post #34

majewsky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquisitions like Concur/Hybris/Successfactors are a big part of why SAP is currently doing quite well, and the board acknowledges as much. Disclosure: I work at SAP and hold a few shares.

Slightly off topic, what's the culture like at SAP? We've recently picked up a few top level SAP bods to run our smaller business, the changes have been both rapid and dramatic.

I work in a medium office in Pittsburgh (we're getting a new building soon.)

The culture is very good here, part of it due to it being formerly a big Ariba office, but the benefits are good, work from home is fantastic. Honestly I don't love my work but the benefits keep me here.

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#39

Post by dmode » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #33

gaius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples?

Acquisitions like Concur/Hybris/Successfactors are a big part of why SAP is currently doing quite well, and the board acknowledges as much. Disclosure: I work at SAP and hold a few shares.

I worked at one of those you mentioned. SAP let us run and grow for 2 years and then came down hard as SAP stock is a margin play and not a growth play. Our entire salesforce was gutted and SAP sales teams were now responsible for selling our products, although their incentive structure didn’t merit selling our product. They also stopped investing in product, moved most development teams offshore to India and China. And then stopped caring about the large customer base and only focused on a handful of large SAP customers who also bought our product. Innovation was actively discouraged with the focus being integration with SAP ecosystem and whatever crappy projects that SAP leadership dreamt up

Re: SAP to acquire Qualtrics

#40

Post by nylonstrung » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 5:43 PM UTC

twtw wrote: post #9

> acquire all outstanding shares of Qualtrics for US$8 billion in cash 2017 profit of $2.6M on revenue of $290M. Please ELI5, how does someone decide on a price 26x higher than earnings? EDIT: 3077x earnings - thanks 'adventured.

No one uses earnings multiples in this universe given that a great deal of venture funded SaaS companies have negative EBITDA. Multiples of training GAAP revenue or current ARR runrate are what's salient