Over the week-end, I overheard a conversation by San Jose-based Business Objects' staff on their cafeteria: it just sucks! "The French in the company bring their own food [...] they don't go to the cafeteria". The whole discussion actually started with Oracle's decision to buy one of Business Objects' competitor, Hyperion, before mentioning that the French-company is considering changing its name to sexier 'Crystal'. Sexier? When I was covering database reporting software Crystal Report more than 10 years ago, then independent (before Seagate buys it) for IDG in France, Crystal was anything/everything *but* sexy. Anyway, here's my advice for CEO John Schwarz: along with thinking of a new *exit* strategy for one of the last two independent software company in the Business Intelligence arena (I'm sure IBM and HP are taking a close look at Cognos too!), don't be so cheap and *pay* more attention to your employees stomachs and fix the cafeteria problem! And please, don't let your PA take care of it... pretty please!!!!