There is a some noise being made today about SAP's decision to become a reseller of Open Text's ECM products. Call me Mr Miserable, but I'm not sure that its really a game changer. SAP and Open Text have been involved in a long, torturous courtship, that so far has failed to result in a marriage.

With other trendy topics like open source, SaaS, SharePoint, and the explosion of regional players buzzing around, most observers have lost interest in where this particular on-and-off-again relationship might lead. Where this makes some impact is that it puts SAP on a more level playing field with Oracle. As Oracle (SAP's number one rival) already cross-sells ECM to its business application buyers, this fills a gap (perceived or otherwise) for SAP. This is game-changing for SAP account execs who were annoyed at Oracle's success at cross- and up-selling ECM.

As we have pointed out in our ECM research, the constant talk of consolidation in the ECM market has not resulted in a decrease in the number of vendors in the space. In fact, the market is thriving. So even if SAP were to acquire Open Text, that in and of itself would not be a game changer. I would be just a name change at the high end of the market, and we have had a lot of those recently already. Real game changers will come in the form of SharePoint 2010 (for good or bad), further development for ECM in the SOA world, and an more specialized and focused array of mid-market challengers. I, for one, believe there remains more than enough opportunity for new solutions to come along and totally upset the apple cart.

So what advice can we give to potential Livelink buyers? Only that you may now have a separate licensing route to explore. But what you should not do (and the same advice goes for Oracle business application customers) is forego the competitive selection process just because your SAP rep is promising to bundle-in some ECM licenses for you. ECM is expensive and complex, and initial licensing costs can be the least of your worries. Every man and his dog has a connector to SAP, so there is no shortage of alternatives to look at in today's marketplace.