Wafer-Thin Mint, Monsieur Ellison? Oracle Acquires AmberPoint

Its merger with Sun Microsystems finally closed, Oracle (ORCL) is moving on to new acquisitions. The first: AmberPoint, a service-oriented-architecture management outfit that the company says fits well with its Fusion Middleware offering.

“The combination of Oracle and AmberPoint is expected to extend Oracle’s leadership in Fusion Middleware Solutions and provide customers with advanced capabilities in SOA Governance and SOA Management through a comprehensive, end-to-end SOA Management and Business Transaction Management offering,” Richard Sarwal, Oracle’s SVP of Product Development, said in a letter to customers.

“Adding AmberPoint’s capabilities to Oracle’s solutions is expected to provide customers with more agility and visibility into their business processes,” Sarwal continued, “enabling increased control and performance of critical applications.”

Terms of Oracle’s (ORCL) acquisition, which is expected to close in the first half of 2010, were not disclosed. Below, Sarwal’s letter in full.

On February 8, 2010 Oracle announced it has agreed to acquire AmberPoint. AmberPoint’s solutions help organizations diagnose and resolve issues in application performance and business transactions. Acknowledged as a leader in SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) Management, AmberPoint has been recognized for its innovation in SOA Management, Business Transaction Management and run-time SOA Governance. The combination strengthens Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions to further enable customers to reduce IT costs and improve customer satisfaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2010.

Effective SOA Management has become increasingly important as organizations seek to improve business processes and application performance. Management of transactions such as account provisioning and insurance claims processing typically requires multiple applications to work together. The complexity is further magnified since these applications are often developed, deployed and managed by different teams. Having an effective SOA Management solution in place can accelerate the diagnosis and resolution of issues in application performance and business transactions before the business is impacted.

The combination of Oracle and AmberPoint is expected to extend Oracle’s leadership in Fusion Middleware Solutions and provide customers with advanced capabilities in SOA Governance and SOA Management through a comprehensive, end-to-end SOA Management and Business Transaction Management offering. Adding AmberPoint’s capabilities to Oracle’s solutions is expected to provide customers with more agility and visibility into their business processes enabling increased control and performance of critical applications.

In addition to AmberPoint’s technology solutions, AmberPoint’s employees have significant domain expertise in SOA Management, and are expected to join Oracle after the transaction closes. We are dedicated to maintaining and improving the quality of innovation, support and service you have come to expect from Oracle by continuing to develop and offer market-leading solutions that are complete, integrated and standards based. As a leading provider of Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions, we look forward to continuing to provide our customers the best and most comprehensive SOA offering that improves performance and lowers your organizations’ IT costs.

Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Richard Sarwal
Senior Vice President, Product Development