Oracle to buy Agile for $495 million

IDG News Service - Oracle Corp. plans to pay $495 million to buy Agile Software Corp., a maker of product life cycle management software.

Product life cycle management (PLM) software is designed to streamline the design, engineering, production, distribution and support of a product.

Oracle said Tuesday that it will pay $8.10 per share in cash for all shares of Agile. In Nasdaq trading yesterday, Agile's stock price closed at $7.08 per share. The acquisition is expected to close in July.

Agile will serve as the foundation of an Oracle PLM offering, Oracle President Charles Phillips said in a prepared statement.

The Agile deal is only the latest in a long string of software acquisitions Oracle has made in the past few years. The company has bought large vendors, such as PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and JD Edwards, to increase its scale and its customer base. It has also acquired smaller companies that provide it with expertise in vertical markets, such as retail, or in specific technology areas, such as in-memory databases, business intelligence and identity management.

The Agile acquisition appears to fit into that latter category, providing PLM technology that can be used in a range of industries, including manufacturing, consumer goods, IT and life sciences.

Phillips said the Agile acquisition furthers Oracle's strategy of offering a full range of enterprise software applications. In a dig at rival SAP AG, Phillips said the acquisition "allows us to offer yet another strategic application to SAP customers."

Acquisitions have helped Oracle grow its share of the applications market and increase its economies of scale, CEO Larry Ellison has said. But they have also presented the company with the challenge of integrating new products, employees and business cultures.

SAP has tended to follow a different strategy, growing its business organically and making only strategic acquisitions that provide it with technology it can't quickly develop itself. It has announced three acquisitions in the past two weeks, making this an unusually busy period for SAP. The companies SAP is acquiring are MaxWare, which develops identity management software; Wicom Communications Ltd., which develops IP-based call center software; and OutlookSoft Corp., which makes performance management software designed for use by chief financial officers.

James Niccolai in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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