Last week's Sapphire felt smaller and quieter than in last year.  Perhaps the economy is taking its toll.  SAP formally announced Galaxy, its yet another BPM tool.  Its attempt to expand in the SME market through a SaaS based offering has been quite unsuccessful so far, but it will keep trying, I'm sure. 

HP announced a planned acquisition of EDS.  If that goes through HP will be a solid #2 behind IBM in IT services.  I think it's a great idea.  The problem is my limit buy order didn't get filled before HP's quarterly numbers came out today, and I don't feel like chasing it.  I bought some PEG today as a defensive play.  It should benefit quite a lot from the run-up in oil and natural gas prices, and its nuclear power generators.  And as a typical utilities firm it pays a good dividend (~3%). 

One stock I've been looking at (and traded several times) is BE, formerly KPMG Consulting. This looks like either a turnaround story or a dead cat.  I'd be willing to take some risk at $1.5/share.  It just lowered the full year guidance which caused some downgrades from analysts. But it's a multi-billion dollar IT services business.  I find it hard to believe it would go busted.  Worst case perhaps it will be acquired.