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Oracle Buys More OSS With MetaSolv

October 23, 2006 |

Oracle Corp. has added another building block to its telecom portfolio, announcing the acquisition of OSS vendor MetaSolv Software Inc. for $219.2 million in cash, which equates to $4.10 per share. (See Oracle Acquires MetaSolv.)

Oracle bought its way into the telecom space earlier this year with the purchase of SIP developer Hotsip, which it followed up by acquiring billing and CRM specialist Portal Software Inc., applications development platform firm Net4Call, and hosted contact center software maker Telephony@Work Inc. (See Oracle Acquires Telephony@Work, Oracle Acquires Portal, and Oracle Buying Into Service Delivery .)

The company has made a push into the service delivery platform sector, recently unveiling a hosted PBX product and upgraded billing software. (See Oracle Unveils SDP Plans, Oracle Offers Next-Gen Billing, and Oracle Offers Hosted PBX.)

MetaSolv -- which has pulled off a financial turnaround in the past 18 months -- has focused on offering a full range of inventory management, provisioning, and activation products to mobile and IP services providers. (See MetaSolv Turns a Corner.) Big-name customers include BT Group plc, Telstra Corp., BellSouth Corp., and Cable & Wireless plc. (See C&W Picks MetaSolv, Telstra Uses MetaSolv, Telenet Deploys MetaSolv, BT Uses MetaSolv OSS, and MetaSolv Scores at BellSouth.)

MetaSolv stock, which closed at $3.32 on Friday, soared 21.08 percent to $4.02 in morning trading on the Nasdaq. Oracle’s share price was up $0.21 (1.11%) to $19.19.

The deal is part of an ongoing consolidation trend in the OSS market as software giants look to build an all-round portfolio of OSS and service delivery capabilities that can meet the needs of large carriers. Cramer Systems Ltd., one of MetaSolv's main rivals in the inventory space, has been acquired by Amdocs Ltd., while IBM Corp. snapped up Micromuse Inc. in a sign that IT firms are increasingly taking on telecom systems vendors on their home turf. (See VCs Cash In on Cramer, IBM Tiptoes to Telecom With Micromuse, and HP Revamps for Convergence.)

— Nicole Willing, Reporter, Light Reading


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