Oracle: Squaring up to SAP
Published: 04 Apr 2005 16:35 BST
SAP executives are quick to dismiss Oracle's strategy, saying it's likely to get bogged down.
"You don't get more powerful by eating more," SAP Executive Board Member Shai Agassi said. "You get more bloated."
An Oracle representative defended the company's position, saying the acquisitions have strengthened its work force, product set and research capabilities.
And even SAP plans to pick up the pace on acquisitions. Executives say they're looking for small companies with interesting technology SAP doesn't already have, minimising the chances for indigestion.
Oracle hasn't ruled out more acquisitions either. After all, two of its highest ranking executives, co-presidents Safra Catz and Charles Phillips, are former investment bankers.
In the short term, Oracle is likely to stick to smaller deals though, like the one it announced last week with Oblix, a 120-person company specializing in computer-user authentication.
Analysts also expect more Retek-like deals from Oracle. Retek was a midsize company with lots of big retail customers that had sought a buyer. Applications companies with a strong presence in the banking, health care, government or pharmaceutical industries are likely next targets, said AMR's Shepherd.
But once things settle in the applications market, Oracle may dust off a list of heftier acquisition targets that became public last year during the company's fight for PeopleSoft. On it were applications players Siebel and Lawson Software, as well as numerous IT infrastructure companies, including BEA, Sybase, Business Objects and Documentum.
Yet analysts are concerned about the law of diminishing returns. Already, Oracle is showing signs of it. The company's financial report last month showed that Oracle and PeopleSoft sold more software licences as separate companies than they did as a combined one.
Oracle dismissed it as a blip in the transition, and stock traders showed mercy as database sales proved healthy.
But some analysts are doubtful. Goldman Sachs projects that Oracle's share of the applications licence market will dwindle this year to about 20 percent, compared with 27 percent at the end of last year. Goldman has SAP climbing 7 percentage points over that time, to 70 percent.
The strategy is a long-term one, however. It could even take years to prove out, ensuring that Ellison & Co. have their hands full for quite some time.
"There are a lot of loose ends," Greenbaum said. "Oracle will be under the microscope for quite a while."
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