Oracle on Wednesday said it would acquire BigMachines, a
Deerfield, Ill.-based cloud computing firm specializing in sales software.
BigMachines helps business clients automate sales orders,
so, for instance, sales people can adjust prices and deals from a variety of
different connected devices. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The move could be an attempt to catch up to competitors such
as Salesforce, according to one analyst.
In the past few years, software vendors such as Oracle, SAP,
IBM and Salesforce have been aggressively acquiring smaller vendors that
deliver software as a service, charging ongoing fees, Forrester analyst Liz
Herbert wrote in an e-mail. These smaller software providers often sell
solutions to specific problems — acquiring them and integrating them into
larger offerings could help reduce complexity.
The acquisition of this kind of sales technology — called
“configure, price, quote” or CPQ — could be a direct challenge to Salesforce,
which has been eroding the customer base for Oracle’s customer relationship
management software called Siebel, Herbert wrote. BigMachines software is
currently also deployed through Salesforce. “This could also create pressure on
salesforce.com to buy or build deeper CPQ functionality itself.”
It also reflects Oracle’s growing emphasis on cloud
computing, BigMachines co-founder and former chief executive Godard Abel said
in an e-mail. “After dismissing the cloud as ‘water vapor’ a few years ago,
Larry Ellison and Oracle seem to have realized they are behind on the cloud and
that it is important to large enterprises. Acquisitions are the best way for
Oracle to catch up.”
In the past two years, Oracle has acquired three other cloud
companies — Eloqua offering marketing software, RightNow with a customer
service offering, and talent recruiting software Taleo.
