When SAP purchased Business Objects (BO) and released the new joint roadmap of the way forward (More details at https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/businessobjects) one of the thing I noticed that was conspicuously missing was a clear message about which direction the planning and performance management products were heading. You could easily make an educated guess with it's purchase of Outlooksoft but did the BO purchase change anything? After all they only purchased Cartesis themselves in mid-2007.
Business Planning and Simulation (BPS) was the original tool of choice but that's been on it's way out since 2005 when it entered maintenance mode, Integrated Planning (IP) was a leap ahead from BPS when launched but still somewhat complex. It does however have a large pool of experienced consultants and is supported until 2013 so anyone who has implemented that or is planning to is covered for a while but one assumes that further development of the product will not continue beyond 2008. SAP themselves are now recommending Business Planning & Consolidation (BPC, ex-Outlooksoft) however current version 5.0 is only available right now on the Microsoft platform, so new SAP based projects would have to use it with a view to a future migration to the planned NetWeaver based next version. BPC 7.0 is due to start ramp-up around June and will be released on both Microsoft and NetWeaver platforms and looks like the strategic tool of choice in the longer term.
Of the Business Objects tools available XI release 2 planning was superceded by BO Planning (ex-Cartesis Planning) and also looks like is heading out in favour of BPC however both products have mainstream support through to 2011. The other major product was Cartesis Finance, and that looks like it will be the tool of choice for financial consolidations now coined BO Enterprise Performance Management.
So whilst the way ahead is far from clear it is starting to take shape, it is inevitable that some products must be dropped to make way so a more streamlined joint offering hopefully leading SAP to a Best of Breed Business Intelligence product set, changing the traditional view that SAP BI is often chosen simply as it is the corporate strategic tool of choice.