The Buzz
Wild about Larry: Oracle makes another deal
February 4, 2013: 12:25 PM ET
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has fallen in love with acquisitions. Oracle announced another Monday morning.
Death. Taxes. Oracle's Larry Ellison buying another company.
Oracle (ORCL) continued its acquisitive ways, announcing Monday that it was buying networking equipment company Acme Packet (APKT) for $1.7 billion.
Want to read a list of all the companies Oracle has purchased since it first launched a hostile offer for PeopleSoft back in 2003? It might take you longer to get through than the Super Bowl lasted.
Ellison has gone on a shopping spree over the past decade, transforming Oracle from a stodgy database software company to one that can offer large corporate customers nearly everything it needs from a tech standpoint, be that hardware, services and all types of enterprise software imaginable.
Shares of Oracle fell about 2% Monday on the news while Acme (not to be confused with the company Wile E. Coyote foolishly ordered all his products from despite never having any success catching the Roadrunner with them) surged more than 22%.
douglas_blake
Wil E Coyote finally wins one! $ORCL buys $APKT for 22% premium. #ACME $$ @LaMonicaBuzz
Meep meep!
But even though Oracle fell on Monday, many traders on StockTwits still think Ellison is pulling a Tom Cruise from that early 1980s football flick and is making all the right moves. (Speaking of Cruise, what's up with the Scientology ad airing during halftime of the Super Bowl?)
ContrarianTrading
$ORCL BOD meeting goes like this "Buy everything in site that is doing well... that is all"
OptionsHawk
Smart Move by Oracle $ORCL, not too lofty of premium, previewed $APKT this weekend; 2H2013 Story w/ VoLTE technology
Oracle has proven to be quite adept with all its purchases. It's a testament to Ellison as well as his top two lieutenants: Safra Catz and former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd. Oracle has avoided the traps that have snared fellow big techs like HP, Cisco (CSCO) and Microsoft (MSFT) following one too many acquisitions.
Still, one trader was surprised by the Acme deal and asked if other networking equipment firms could get bought next.
TechStockRadar
Never would have guessed Oracle would aquire Acme Packet. Maybe Riverbed, SolarWinds, BroadSoft next to get bought. $APKT $RVBD $SWI $BSFT
Interesting. Investors clearly are betting that BroadSoft (BSFT) could be a target. Shares rose 7% Monday. Riverbed (RVBD) was up 2% as well but SolarWinds (SWI) was trading lower.
But a fellow member of the Fourth Estate is wondering if Ellison can continue his quest for enterprise tech domination or if he's done one too many deals.
CNBCMelloy
Ellison expands empire out of software $ORCL with $APKT into networking. Top or another driver for General Zod?
http://t.co/2TXniFrJ
Ha! Kneel before Larry?
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No clouds for Salesforce. Stock up 8%.
Salesforce.com (CRM) bulls should be singing the following refrain today. "Hey. Hey! You. You! Get onto my cloud." (Still bummed that I didn't get Rolling Stones tickets for their upcoming show at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn.)
The cloud computing giant reported earnings and sales on Tuesday that topped analysts' forecasts. Salesforce's stock shot up 8% on the news Wednesday, making the company the best performer in the S&P 500 MORE
Paul R. La Monica - Nov 21, 2012 12:30 PM ET
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