Oracle subsumes another

Oracle this week announced an agreement to buy planning solutions provider Demantra, with the acquisition expected to close in before the end of this month. Upon making the announcement, Oracle provided a few details regarding the purchase.

Firstly, Oracle representatives claimed that “Oracle has offered employment to the entire Demantra team.” This one flies in the face of a bit of downsizing Oracle almost always manages to perform with their newly acquired companies. Oracle also plans to use Demantra solutions as “This will be Oracle’s Demand Planning solution going forward.” Press material carries the admission that the Demantra “solution has greater functionality than existing Oracle solutions” and that it generally “needs less tuning and less experienced demand planners will find it easier to work with than many solutions.”

Existing Oracle Demand Management users are offered to option to upgrade to equivalent capability within this solution with no additional license fees. As a bit of simultaneous good news / bad news item, the announcement stated that “Oracle sees very little overlap with the Siebel CRM application. Where Siebel is more focused on the overall promotion plan, Demantra is more focused on promotion forecasting and event planning.

Similarly, there is a slight overlap with the budgeting function in enterprise performance management solutions but Oracle sees this as more complementary than a competing application and is looking to integrate it with their EPM application.” Reportedly surprised by Oracle’s latest financial machination, ARC Advisory Group member Steve Banker said, "This is an acquisition I never would have predicted. But after taking a closer look, it does fill some holes, and it does deepen Oracle’s capabilities in demand management."