I’ve been on vacation and working on several projects so my blogging has slowed down… But no fear I’ve got lots of topics I want to explore including this one which I started but will now attempt to continue!
So what else do I think that Oracle is doing right? I’ve already mentioned in my previous post about their drive to maintain their leadership in their software products.
The second area where I think Oracle is doing the right things is in how they are handling their acquisitions.
It’s no secret that Oracle has spent over $25 billion acquiring many new companies during the past few years. The list includes such luminaries as PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Seibel, Hyperion, BEA and now Sun Microsystems.
What has amazed me is that given the difficulties of acquisitions Oracle continues to maintain a stellar record in assimilating the new products and enhancing them while maintaining good end-user relations. Acquisitions are notoriously difficult for many non-technical reasons. Every company has a different culture and often the customers have bought into the culture as much as into the product. Add in the loyalty of key staff and there are always “unplanned” departures of key personnel.
The bottom-line is that successful acquisitions are extraordinarily difficult to pull off. Even more so when you string a number of them together as Oracle has done.
Many of Oracle’s acquisitions were done under hostile circumstances but in retrospect they have been mostly positive for those companies and certainly positive for Oracle’s bottom-line.
Somehow Oracle has fine-tuned their ability to do these acquisitions better than other companies I’ve watched. As we often hear on TV, “Do not attempt this at home!”.
The benefits to us who rely on Oracle products is significant.
New products expand Oracle’s ability to deliver better solutions while adding new functionality to existing products. For example, the acquisition of PeopleSoft greatly influenced the development of the Fusion Applications as Oracle worked to improved the clunky E-Business Suite interface. The acquisition of BEA has greatly improved the capabilities of Oracle’s Fusion Middleware. These are only a few of the areas where existing Oracle clients are benefiting.
For those companies being assimilated there are also benefits because of Oracle’s deep-pockets, integration abilities and depth of software development talent. A great example of Oracle’s effort to improve the benefits for acquired products is shown in their introduction of their Applications Unlimited program. Their clear support policies in the Lifetime Support Policy are also a great benefit.
In summary, congratulations to Oracle for their successes in acquiring new technologies and complementary products. We are all benefiting from their efforts in this area.