Oracle’s acquisition of Eloqua, what does it mean for Eloqua and its customers?

With news breaking on the acquisition, CleverTouch’s MD, Adam Sharp shares his thoughts.

  1. The price $870m, is a good 40% uplift on their market cap of $617m.
  2. I am a little surprised it is so soon after the IPO, this is a great Christmas bonus for the staff as all their stock will now be fully vested.
  3. At last Marketing Automation (MA) will be embedded into an enterprise technology architecture and no longer just be another departmental point solution.  (Some of the MA capabilities are equally relevant in HR, Finance or Supply Chain Management).
  4. Whilst Oracle is not necessarily universally loved they are respected and formidable and they do understand software and it is another endorsement and validation of the MA marketspace.
  5. It means that Eloqua will compete even further up the chain in the Unica space as Oracle has huge global reach.
  6. It also means that vertical industry solutions for MA will be further accelerated.
  7. Oracle is also really well financed with a lot of bag carrying sales people and a marketing machine behind them so it does provide global clients a degree of reassurance as well as global coverage locally.
  8. It does mean that Marketo will be bought by Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, SAP or Microsoft in the next 12 months and before IPO, thereby saving a wedge load of cash.  (The cost of the Eloqua IPO was c.$20-30m)
  9. As with any change there is a risk that some Eloqua employees will leave, after the merger goes through, but this also means new companies will be formed and further innovations will be created on the back of this merger.
  10. It means Pardot went quite cheaply and Act-on and Marketo especially will already be counting the money too.

I am not sure who to congratulate the most; Oracle for the smart pre-emptive move or Eloqua for the $870m valuation; but it is exciting times in the Marketing Automation industry in 2013.

December 20th, 2012 by Louise Fielding-Smith

Tags: , , , , , ,

Category: Marketing automation

Comments (1)

 

  1. Koen De Witte says:
    December 20, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    Adam,

    Smart move! (i.e. posting your thoughts that quickly…)
    Exciting and interesting times indeed.

    You forgot -in true spinal tap style- to add item #11; who will be buying SFDC?

    Talk soon

    Koen De Witte
    MD LeadFabric NV

    Reply

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