Oracle buys Portal Software

Oracle this week took ownership of Portal Software Inc. and announced quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.

On Thursday Oracle posted fourth-quarter earnings of 29 cents per share and sales of $4.94 billion, beating estimates of 27 cents per shares and $4.55 billion in sales.

Portal Software makes revenue management software for users in global communications and media markets. The company says the software allows users to manage revenue across sales channels and geographies. Oracle first announced plans to purchase Portal back in April.

Ray Wang, a business applications analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, said Oracle's purchase of Portal Software signifies that Oracle is ready to take on software companies like Amdocs Ltd. in areas such as order management and convergence.

With the Portal Software buy, Oracle has "told the market that they're going to build a billing infrastructure," Wang said. "From there, they can get into the telecom market, the cable market, the media market and the utilities. It's a fundamental piece of horizontal technology."

Oracle says Portal's employees will form a global communications business unit within Oracle and will focus on billing and revenue management. Bhaskar Gorti, Portal's current senior vice president of worldwide sales, service and marketing, will lead the unit as general manager.

Portal is the latest addition to a growing list of Oracle acquisitions, which includes customer relationship management giants PeopleSoft Corp. and Siebel Systems Inc. Oracle has also recently announced plans to acquire Demantra, a Waltham, Mass.-based developer of supply chain software.

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