Oracle agreed to acquire Portal Software, a global provider of billing and revenue management solutions for the communications and media industry, for approximately $220 million in cash.
Portal offers a billing and revenue management solution based on an object-oriented architecture built on Oracle that can bill and manage all communications services including wireline, wireless, broadband, cable, voice over IP, IPTV, music, and video. Its customer list includes AOL Time Warner, China Mobile, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom/Orange, NTT, Reuters, Sirius Satellite Radio, Softbank BB, Sony, Telecom Italia Mobile, Telefonica Mexico, Telenor Mobil, Telstra, Vodafone, and XM Satellite Radio. The company reported $126.8 million in revenue for fiscal year 2004.
Oracle said the acquisition would extend its commitment to the communications industry, where 17 of the top 20 most profitable communications companies run Oracle Applications. Additionally Oracle’s Siebel Telecom applications are used in telco call centers and customer care. Oracle Database 10g is the leading relational database and TimesTen is the most widely used in-memory database for the communications industry. Oracle Fusion Middleware is a service delivery platform for next generation networks using network independent standards.
Portal’s management and employees will form a dedicated global communications business unit within Oracle concentrating on billing and revenue management. Bhaskar Gorti, Portal’s current SVP of worldwide sales, services and marketing, will lead the unit as General Manager, and Dave Labuda will become the unit’s CTO.
Portal is based in Cupertino, California and Oracle is based in Redwood Shores, California.
http://www.oracle.comhttp://www.portal.com
