Oracle is behind the times when it comes to mobile, but it looks like that is about to change following its (very quiet) acquisition of two-year old enterprise mobile management provider Bitzer Mobile, for an undisclosed sum. Oracle rarely makes one-off purchases in a market, so this no doubt heralds a stream of more significant mobile acquisitions – and there is no shortage of mobile specialists to pick from. It follows IBM’s purchase of mobile management provider Fiberlink Communications last week (see here). Both acquisitions address the BYOD movement, which is still at a relatively early stage of development, with Bitzer focussing on authentication, identify management and security.
The understated announcement of the acquisition (a short paragraph on the Oracle web site) coupled the lack of insight into what Oracle plans to do with Bitzer (all Oracle says it that it expects Bitzer will become a “core component” of its mobile security strategy) suggests Oracle is brewing up a significant mobile initiative. It has a long way to go to catch up with SAP and IBM however, especially given the multiple technology dimensions of a mobile platform, and it will struggle to build credibility based on a series of rapid acquisitions. But those types of challenges have not stopped it in the past.