Oracle's offer to purchase BEA Systems for US$6.7 billion (NZ$9 billion would be the company's 10th acquisition in 2007. Here's a look at each purchase and what it means for Oracle, one of the industry's dominant applications vendor.
March 1: Oracle buys business intelligence vendor Hyperion Solutions for US$3.3 billion. Oracle President Charles Phillips said the buy continued Oracle's push to offer products to SAP customers, a strategy that included prior acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel.
March 23: Oracle buys Tangosol, a provider of in-memory data grid software, a product aimed at improving application performance by providing fast access to frequently used data.
April 18: Oracle buys the intellectual property assets of AppForge, a company with a mobile application development and mobile applications platform. Oracle says the IP will help develop mini-applications for customers using devices such as Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile 5 and the BlackBerry.
April 24: Oracle buys Lodestar Corporation, a provider of meter data management and energy products for the utilities industry.
May 15: Oracle buys Agile Software, a product life-cycle management vendor, for US$495 million. Agile's customers included Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, McDonald's, Qualcomm and Shell.
July 18: Oracle buys Bharosa, a software vendor that helps fight online identity theft and fraud. Oracle said it would continue selling Bharosa software on a standalone basis, but also add its real-time fraud prevention capabilities to Oracle's web-based authorisation products.
Sept. 2: Oracle buys Netsure Telecom, which makes software for network intelligence, analytics and network data integrity. Netsure's products are sold to communications service providers such as Vodafone, Cable & Wireless and Eircom.
Sept. 5: Oracle buys Bridgestream, a maker of enterprise role management software, a key component of identity management. Oracle said it would add Bridgestream capabilities to Oracle's Identity and Access Management Suite.
Oct. 9: Oracle buys LogicalApps, a maker of automated governance, risk and compliance products that help enforce proper segregation of duties in enterprise applications, reduce fraud and provide evidence of proper controls.
Oct. 12: Oracle announces that it has proposed buying BEA Systems for US$17 per share, an offer valued at US$6.7 billion.