Oracle’s $3B acquisition of Hyperion: 'A rough road ahead?'

Oracle’s planned purchase of Hyperion may result in software that allows government customers to more easily merge their strategic plans with their operational data, though industry observers also worry about integration issues with the acquisition.

Hyperion CEO Godfrey Sullivan noted in a press release that the field of performance management is converging with that of business intelligence. Folding Hyperion software into Oracle’s Business Intelligence suite would offer customers the ability to align operational data with their strategic goals.

In the government space, performance management software is often used by agencies to track how well departments are meeting the President’s Management Agenda. Such software could also be used to see how an agency is meeting its goals. According to Hyperion’s Web site, the Army Recruiting Command has used the Hyperion Performance Suite to produce reports and executive summaries. The Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency also has used that software to prepare financial reports and budgets, according to Hyperion’s site.

While Hyperion users who run Oracle middleware and enterprise resource planning tools may enjoy greater interoperability in the years to come, those that use non-Oracle platforms may experience “a rough road ahead,” speculated Alyssa Farrell, SAS’ government industry marketing manager. SAS also features performance management functionality within its own SAS 9 software.

“We don’t know if Oracle will continue to develop Hyperion software or if it will attempt to transfer the functionality to Oracle’s own solutions suite,” she said.

-Joab Jackson, WashingtonTechnology.com

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Oracle Buys Enterprise Performance Management Leader Hyperion

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., 01-MAR-2007 04:20 AM Oracle today announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: HYSL), a leading global provider of performance management software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion.

"The acquisition of Hyperion makes Oracle the category leader in the high growth enterprise performance management market," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Hyperion's EPM software coupled with Oracle's Business Intelligence (BI) tools and analytic applications form an end-to-end performance management system that includes planning, budgeting, consolidation, operational analytics and compliance reporting. "

"Requirements for Performance Management and Business Intelligence solutions are increasingly converging," said Hyperion Chief Executive Officer Godfrey Sullivan. "Given the critical need for managers across the enterprise to align operational decisions with strategy, now is the right time for Hyperion to combine with a strategic partner like Oracle to deliver the first, integrated end-to-end Enterprise Performance Management System."

The transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to close in April 2007. More information is available at http://www.oracle.com/hyperion.

Hyperion's Upstream Purchase For Quality

"Hyperion Solutions agreed to purchase partner Upstream Software, a Rochester, Mich.-based maker of workflow software to track the movement of financial information from sources to reports.

'With a lack of confidence in financial data leading to increased business risk, solving the financial data quality problem is a top enterprise priority,' Hyperion said in a statement.