Oracle to buy GoldenGate Software

Oracle announced Thursday that it's buying San Francisco-based GoldenGate Software, a provider of real-time integration software, for an undisclosed amount.

The enterprise software giant said GoldenGate's technology will help boost Oracle customers' ability to make decisions based on timely information from multiple sources. "The combination of GoldenGate and Oracle is expected to create a comprehensive heterogeneous data integration platform," Oracle said in a statement.

GoldenGate and Oracle, which have been partners for more than a decade, will continue to operate independently until the deal closes.

"With the addition of GoldenGate, Oracle expects to help our customers achieve better performance through improved business intelligence and business continuity with real-time information," added Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president of Oracle's Fusion Middleware Product Development, also in a statement.

Although the announcement was absent financial details, The Wall Street Journal pointed to a blog post by research company 451 Group, which predicted the acquisition and estimated that GoldenGate took in about $100 million in revenue over the last year.

Of course, Oracle has been quite buy-happy lately, mostly notably with its plan to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, as well as smaller companies like Virtual Iron. (Reuters reports that Oracle has spent more than $34 billion buying about three dozen companies over the past five years.)

[Mr. Dee]

Let me guess, they will rename 'Gates of Hell' with Larry 'the Devil' Ellison holding a pitch fork greeting new customers.

[wobbles-grogan]

Thats alot o money on buyin stuff. Could ruin the company if they get in too big too fast (i know theyre around a good while but there still expanding very quick)

[inachu1]

I would have found it more logical if Oracle bought the company that developted "Q" Predictive diagnostic downtime tool. I know the company was bought out years ago and went under a name change but if it was one purchase I thought Larry would buy it would be Q.

Not sure how much in the sights this was for Larry.

[Ronlap]

You could see this one coming a mile away. GG allows companies to interchange data between heterogeneous systems in real time while reformatting the data for different systems. It can also be used for online upgrades between different application and database versions. It's pretty potent stuff.

[RompStar_420]

Come on Oracle is the best DB out there. Let me give you a quick example.

Say you want to learn databases, you are just starting out, you got a book or two, (it will take you a while!) - with Microsoft SQL Server 2008, it will work for 180 days and then you have to license it. It will take you way more than 180 days to learn database, try a year or more at the minimum.

So, you are learning and then on the 180th day, it stops working and you need to get an expensive license. The Express is limited. With Oracle, you can download say 11G Enterprise, install, and you can use it for 5 years, if you think it will take you that long, no need for any install key. You only pay for it, once you put it into production mode!

Take dat!

[idfubar]

Most (if not all) enterprise database vendors offer a "developer edition" which is free (as in beer)...

[chili_picante]

Oracle: Great database, not-so-great company.