October 8, 2008
By

Richard Adhikari

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Oracle today announced it will buy Primavera, a long established leader in project management software, for an undisclosed sum.

Primavera counts over 76,000 customers and some five million users worldwide. The company was established in 1983.

Oracle Enterprise PPM, as the Primavera product will be called, is to be tailored to project-intensive industries such as engineering and construction, aerospace and defense, utilities, oil and gas, manufacturing, and professional services, Oracle said.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) has a history of making strategic acquisitions to drive its push into various markets. Last year, it bought business intelligence vendor Hyperion for $3.3 billion, and middleware vendor BEA for $8.5 billion.

Buying Primavera will help Oracle home in on the rapidly growing enterprise project portfolio management (PPM) (define) market, which grew 25 percent faster worldwide than the industry average according to a Forrester research report quoted by Oracle.

Oracle also cited Project Management Institute figures showing that project management consumes 20 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), or $12 trillion. "With 20 percent of the world’s GDP spent annually on projects, the addition of Primavera is expected to extend Oracle’s leadership position in the enterprise application space," Oracle President Charles Phillips said in a statement.

Primavera products have standard, pre-built integrations with leading ERP vendors and open, standards-based integration with industry applications, Oracle said.

Oracle also said it would maintain standalone support for Primavera's products, integrate them with other enterprise ERP and third-party applications, continue product development, enhance and support, and accelerate product innovation.

Primavera's management and employees will form a dedicated global business unit focused on Enterprise PPM solutions within Oracle. The unit will be led by Primavera CEO Joel Koppelman.

Shares of Oracle were off by 38 cents, or 2.26 percent, to $16.40 after the news was announced.

TAGS: Oracle, mergers and acquisitions, project management software, Primavera

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