Wawa CIO: Upgrade Fear Dictated Multimillion-Dollar SAP Purchase - ' Bidding War '

After some discussion, though, Wawa's IT team concluded that the merger didn't really matter and that it might even be favorable. "We thought it could have been a good thing because SAP was going to get some talent from Retek."

When things later flipped and Oracle ended up winning the bidding war and gaining control of Retek, McCarthy said he was relieved to have made the deal with SAP. "Thank God we didn't go with Retek," he said, because of all of the changes and uncertainty that will surround Retek "for the next two years as Oracle tries to integrate it all in."

Wawa is also an Oracle user, and McCarthy was asked whether that would have made a Retek-Oracle combination more easily integrated. He said it wouldn't have any impact.

"We're using Microsoft [operating system]. Does that mean that we should use SQL Server, too?"

Over at Retek, a senior executive said his company was sad to have lost the Wawa bid, but questioned whether Wawa dodged the merger bullet or is walking into an upcoming merger train.

The executive—Joe Polonski, Retek's vice president for enterprise strategy—was referring to widespread industry speculation that now that SAP lost its bid to purchase Retek, it is going to acquire a different retail company. "That news will come one day," Polonski said. "SAP didn't get what they wanted, so they are still shopping for second-best."

In November 2004, SAP bid between $6.75 and $7.25 per share for control of Retek and—when bidding against Oracle—ultimately offered $11 a share, only to be beaten by Oracle's $11.25-a-share winning bid.

Polonski made the argument that it's no sin to be rejected because your software is too fine-tuned to a customer's business objectives and that its feature set is more rich and robust. Asked if it was necessarily fact that Retek's package was stronger than SAP's, he said, "Obviously SAP thought Retek was more functionally rich."

Polonski said that during the bid for Wawa, the company saw data that Wawa's "user community had really latched onto Retek" and gave Retek a higher score.

Asked if he thought Wawa's decision made sense, given the concerns about business disruptions during upgrades, Polonski said it depends on the business' goals.

"SAP would be more comfortable if you don't change their software. You should change your businesses process to map to the software and all is good," he said, adding a parting shot that Wawa's decision made sense to him if the CIO "is willing to compromise on his business requirements."

Evan Schuman can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.

Check out eWEEK.com's for the latest news, views and analysis on technology's impact on retail.