By Anne Widjaja
Last week, Oracle offered a $1.9 billion acquisition bid for leading provider of cloud-based talent management software company, Taleo. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of Taleo and will expect to close by mid-2012.
Oracle’s acquisition of Taleo has occurred just months after SAP offered a $3.4 billion bid for one of Taleo’s closest competitors – SuccessFactors.
Oracle will partner with Taleo to utilise Taleo’s Talent Management Cloud software, which helps organisations attract, develop, motivate and retain talent.
“Taleo’s integrated cloud-based talent management solutions optimise how organizations hire, manage… and reward their employees and gives companies the intelligence needed to capitalize on their most critical asset – their people,” said Michael Gregoire, chairman and CEO, Taleo.
“Joining forces with Oracle gives us the opportunity to better serve our customers,” he added.
The partnership will ideally result in the development of cloud solutions that will help managers and employees manage their own careers. It will also aim to improve the employee experience through faster on boarding and improved collaboration with team members via social media.
While SAP moved first to acquire SuccessFactors, the company’s full realisation of its cloud strategy is being held up by regulatory delays. In the meantime, Oracle has released a much broader portfolio of cloud products with its Fusion Apps line. Fusion Apps was introduced to the market last year and offered customers web-based versions of new business management software programs by Oracle.
According to analysts, Oracle’s acquisition of Taleo and its recent purchase of RightNow Technology, a cloud-based software provider for customer service management solutions, has shown the company’s commitment to filling the gaps in its cloud portfolio.
Whilst both SAP and Oracle have been rapidly expanding their cloud portfolios to catch up with market leader SalesForce.com, some analysts have expressed doubt about their attempts.
Nomura Securities analyst Rick Sherlund commented that Oracle’s and SAP’s aggressive cloud strategy is about “…own[ing] this space.”
“They want to reinvent themselves for the cloud… They are buying a position in the cloud through consolidation. [But} SAP and Oracle are still perceived as the old guard on premise and they are not ‘with it’ in cloud,” he said.
