SAP is hoping to stake out some turf in the predictive analytics software market with a new application, BusinessObjects Predictive Analysis software, which was announced Tuesday.

The next time you choose an emoticon to spice up a comment about a company, product or service online, know this: There's a chance that a software program is capturing the sentiment expressed by your smiley or frowny for analysis.

The top 10 mergers and acquisitions in the network industry in 2009 all cracked the billion-dollar barrier, and involved vendors in hardware, IT services, collaboration, storage, wireless infrastructure and other segments. IT behemoths such as Oracle, Cisco, Dell, HP, EMC and IBM were among the biggest spenders.

If SAS Institute CEO Jim Goodnight is feeling pressured by IBM's recent US$1.2 billion purchase of rival predictive analytics vendor SPSS, he's not showing it.

IBM's US$1.2 billion purchase of SPSS Corp. will immediately turn IBM from pretender into contender in the high-end analytics and data mining market, say analysts, and could leave rivals such as SAP AG or Oracle Corp. ruing a missed opportunity.

IBM has agreed to acquire SPSS, a Chicago-based analytics software specialist, the companies said Tuesday.