Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

RightNow shareholders approve US$1.5 billion sale to Oracle

Oracle moves closer to gaining a range of "customer experience management" software to battle Salesforce.com

Oracle's US$1.5 billion purchase of cloud software vendor RightNow Technologies took another step forward on Thursday as a vast majority of RightNow shareholders approved the deal.

"Approximately 99.8% of the shares voting at today's Special Meeting of Stockholders voted in favor of the approval and adoption of the merger agreement, which represented approximately 87.0% percent of RightNow's total outstanding shares of common stock as of the November 8, 2011 record date for the Special Meeting," RightNow said in a statement.

Oracle announced plans to buy RightNow in October. The deal still needs regulatory approval.

Most likely, Oracle is more interested in RightNow's "customer experience management" software products for improved customer support, rather than its CRM application, where Oracle already has a widely used offering.

The RightNow deal has been seen as an attempt by Oracle to compete more effectively against Salesforce.com, which has its roots in CRM but in recent years made acquisitions to build out a customer support strategy as well.

Oracle has said it intends to position RightNow's portfolio alongside complementary technologies such as its Siebel marketing application and ATG e-commerce suite.

Earlier this week, Oracle announced second-quarter results that saw hardware systems product revenue fall 14 percent and new software license sales rise only 2 percent, leading to consternation from investors and a hit to its stock price.

While Oracle executives stressed that hardware sales will grow and newer products like Oracle Fusion Applications will boost software sales, it's also possible that Oracle could follow up RightNow with yet another big acquisition in order to maintain growth.

Oracle certainly has the war chest to make such a move if desired, with about $31 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand, according to its second-quarter filing.

Some observers anticipate Oracle will acquire a company in response to rival SAP's $3.4 billion purchase of cloud-based HCM (human capital management) software vendor SuccessFactors.

But working against this hypothesis is the fact that Oracle is already making Fusion HCM a main focus of its initial marketing wave for the next-generation software suite.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: IDG, Oracle, RightNow Technologies, Salesforce.com, SAP
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: applications, business issues, cloud computing, customer relationship management, internet, Internet-based applications and services, mergers and acquisitions, oracle, RightNow, salesforce.com, sap, social networking, software, SuccessFactors
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • A Governance Guide for Hybrid SharePoint Migrations
    Cloud-based computing represents a powerful new option for managing enterprise content, offering increased flexibility, efficiency, and reduced cost for IT infrastructure, data storage, and applications. However, for a variety of business and technical reasons, most organisations will take a phased approach to adopting cloud-based services, which will require them to continue to maintain their on-premises SharePoint environments during the transition. This white paper, written by Chris Beckett from SharePoint Bits, discusses some of the benefits and risks of hybrid SharePoint deployments, and presents governance considerations that are essential for ensuring a successful migration.
    Learn more »
  • Leveraging the Service Catalog to Scale Your MSP Business
    When assessing an MSP’s maturity and prospects, one question provides more insights than any other: “What’s in your service catalog?” A well-defined service catalog can set the framework for growth. The lack of a service catalog can significantly impede an MSP’s ability to scale. This paper explores why the service catalog is so vital, and provides some practical guidelines MSPs can apply in order to ensure their service catalog provides maximum utility and benefit.
    Learn more »
  • Work Life Web 2011
    The 2011 WorkLifeWeb research shows that, while the new social Web is a potential tool for corporate success, there are ‘social media growing pains’ in evidence among both frontline workers and their managers.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.