A few weeks ago as part of its spat with HP/Autonomy, Oracle was effectively saying it had the unstructured data issue covered so had no need of the Autonomy tools. But the announcement of the acquisition of Autonomy rival Endeca (unstructured data management, web commerce and business intelligence solutions) indicates otherwise. A report in the Times suggests Oracle paid up to $800m for the privately held company.
What Oracle gets with Endeca is an enterprise search capability for unstructured data and the ability to perform search-based BI. While the verbal fisticuffs between Autonomy’s Mike Lynch and Oracle’s Larry Ellison are entertaining and the move raises the level of competition between Oracle and HP, there are also important implications for Oracle’s rivals in the business applications and software infrastructure areas, SAP and Microsoft. SAP doesn’t really have a comparable capability, while Microsoft hasn’t focused on search-based BI with its FAST Search tool. So it looks like Oracle will move ahead in this area. But it is also yet another new code base to add to its bulging portfolio.
Oracle has never had a problem with changing its mind if it can see the potential for profits. This is the latest case in point.