Oracle acquires MetaSolv Software 23 October, 2006 By Vanessa Ho

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The acquisition will bring MetaSolv's OSS product set into Oracle that includes provisioning, network inventory and activation. MetaSolv's standards-based solutions support all types of services including next-generation IMS, VoIP, IPTV, IP VPN, broadband and mobile services as well as traditional voice and data services.

"By adding a leading OSS application suite, Oracle plans to offer a fully integrated, end-to-end productized solution that will help service providers streamline the 'campaign to cash' process, optimize asset lifecycles and accelerate time-to-market of new products and services," said Bhaskar Gorti, Oracle's senior vice-president and general manager of the communications global business unit, in a statement. "Conventional, customized solutions have proven inefficient, inflexible and costly. Oracle is putting service providers in control to simplify their infrastructure, deliver more services faster and drive brand loyalty."

George Goodall, senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group, said that the acquisition of MetaSolv is part of Oracle's ongoing strategy of moving into the communications vertical and cited such recent acquisitions of Siebel, TimesTen and Portal Software by Oracle to enter that arena.

"We are seeing a whole range of acquisitions so that [Oracle] can sell vertical focused applications on top of their own infrastructure, databases and applications servers," said Goodall. "With MetaSolv, this is another step in that evolution," he added.

For MetaSolv president and CEO T. Curtis Holmes Jr., he is excited about the new chapter his company is entering in terms of the business evolution for MetaSolv's customers, partners, shareholders and employees.

"The natural synergies between Oracle's and MetaSolv's premier product suites, coupled with Oracle's extensive research and development capacity, will enable us to further enhance our products and ensure our customers' continued success. It is a very beneficial business combination that will drive service-delivery innovation and leadership in the industry," he said in a statement.

Goodall said he isn't surprised that MetaSolv was acquired by Oracle, since the company is considered a leader in the OSS space.

"[MetaSolv] was a high flier back in 2000, but took some hard hits over the last five years," he said. "They don't have a lot of cash and in order for them to continue as an enterprise they only had one clear exit opportunity, which was acquisition. [The merger] gives them an infusion of liquidity to continue on their products."

What Oracle gets out of this deal, Goodall said, is MetaSolv's client book so that Oracle not only gets MetaSolv's products but also its client relationships.

As well, this merger is a good move for Oracle's channel partners as it gives Oracle an opportunity to go after smaller companies, which are difficult to target, for new business opportunities, the analyst said.

"One way of conquering this is through aggressive use of channel partners," Goodall said.

As well, he added that MetaSolv's VARs were limited to MetaSolv products but now with the merger, they can now resell deeper into the infrastructure stack.

For customers, the one benefit of the merger is continued viability of the vendor, Goodall said.

"When [a customer's] vendor gets acquired, a fear is that the acquiring company is going to collapse the product line. This is not a likely scenario here as MetaSolv's products are unique to Oracle's footprint," he said.