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Oracle acquisitions: Is Oracle interested in Salesforce.com?

Oracle acquisitions: Is Oracle interested in Salesforce.com?

By  William Band, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research 

SearchCRM.com

What effect will Salesforce.com's partnership with Google have on a possible Salesforce.com acquisition by Oracle?
The growing relationship between Salesforce.com and Google has been driven primarily by a need for both to compete with Microsoft, and a shared commitment to the delivery of applications via the Internet using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This strategic alignment is not shared between Salesforce.com and Oracle.

Oracle has, however, been stepping up its efforts to participate in the SaaS CRM marketplace through the acquisition of Siebel On Demand and the subsequent re-launch of the product as CRM On Demand. However, it has a long way to go to catch up with Salesforce.com.

Oracle's appetite for acquisitions appears to be somewhat sated at this moment in time, and the premium required to purchase Salesforce.com would make this a costly way for Oracle to increase it presence in the SaaS space. So, the odds that Salesforce.com will be acquired by Oracle have become lower.