And now, get some glue

After nine acquisitions in nine months, Oracle’s ravenous appetite for acquisitions may have finally been sated with the purchase of long-suffering rival Siebel (see “Larry, there’s been a mistake; somebody put my nameplate on this broom closet”). Certainly, CRM gourmand Larry Ellison seems to feel Oracle’s had it’s fill — at least for the time being. “I don’t think you’ll see us do another major acquisition for some time,” he told analysts yesterday. A wise course, because the integration issues Oracle is facing are daunting enough already. Last week, Oracle had three CRM product lines — its own, PeopleSoft’s and J.D. Edwards’, which was bought by PeopleSoft. Now it has four. Integrating them will be a herculean task. (SiliconValley.com)

Indeed. Here’s a company to look at for that glue: Siperian. The value of Siperian’s Customer Data Integration suite (CDI) is that it provides a “360-degree view” of the customer by bringing together data from disparate sources throughout the enterprise. A central component of CDI is an integrated master customer reference database (a.k.a. “the customer data hub”) with built-in data quality, correction and correlation capabilities. Competitor DWL has recently been purchased by IBM.

Larry’s dessert ought to be a small gift to his professional services organization who must be reeling at the moment!