From soup to nuts, PeopleSoft to Sigma, a rundown of Oracle's acquisitions

In June 2003, Oracle launched its takeover bid for PeopleSoft Inc., just days after PeopleSoft itself had entered a merger agreement with J.D. Edwards. Three years later, Oracle had fended off PeopleSoft's board of directors and the U.S. Department of Justice, and gone on to buy 20 companies as part of a massive acquisition spree aimed at overtaking SAP as the leader in enterprise business applications. What follows is a timeline of every transaction, beginning with the close of the PeopleSoft deal.

January 2005

Retek: Retail technology vendor Retek Inc. finally decides between its two suitors and selects Oracle, which outbid rival SAP with a $670 million total offer.

March 2005

integrated into Oracle Identity Management and will serve as the security foundation for Fusion Middleware.

June 2005

TripleHop : Looking to extend its content management arsenal, Oracle buys up TripleHop's MatchPoint technology, a context-sensitive enterprise search tool.

June 2005

version 6.0 .

July 2005

G-Log: During its annual OpenWorld conference, Oracle reveals it has bought G-Log and its logistics and transportation management and supply-chain software. It will later become part of just an effort to disrupt MySQL AB.

November 2005

TempoSoft and 360 Commerce: Oracle acquires French workforce-management vendor TempoSoft just before the New Year to add workforce scheduling to integrate with PeopleSoft Enterprise, its E-Business Suite and Oracle Retail applications. Oracle also adds retail management software vendor 360 Commerce to capitalize on point-of-sale systems integration with customer interaction data.

January 2006

Sleepycat: The CEO changes his tune, and the Berkeley DB open source database product line, with an estimated 200 million deployments, becomes the latest target in Oracle's buying spree. By May, Oracle releases a Portal: The revenue management software vendor provides Oracle a quick way to take on Amdocs and other order management vendors and build a billing infrastructure to reach into the telecom, cable and media markets.

April 2006

Net4Call: A provider of Parlay/OSA service delivery components for the telecommunications industry, Net4Call will be combined with Oracle SDP to help customers turn siloed network investments into a service-oriented architecture.

June 2006

Telephony@Work: Oracle dials up the hosted contact center market and buys the underlying platform of its existing Siebel Contact OnDemand, its SaaS customer service application. Together, the acquisitions are intended to provide a full hosted contact center from one vendor.

August 2006

Sigma Dynamics: Bulking up its Business Intelligence business, Oracle adds a real-time and predictive analytics vendor that will be offered standalone and as part of Oracle BI and Fusion Middleware.

October 2006

Sunopsis Inc.: Oracle says the purchase of data integration vendor Sunopsis will enhance its Fusion Middleware offering by providing greater support for both Oracle and non-Oracle data sources.

October 2006

MetaSolv Software Inc.: Oracle is planning to purchase telecommunications software provider MetaSolv.

November 2006

SPL WorldGroup Inc.: Oracle announced plans to purchase the seller of revenue and operations management software to take on SAP in the utilities and public sector industries.

November 2006

Stellent Inc.: Oracle receives U.S. antitrust approval to acquire the content management software vendor in a cash offer worth about $440 million.

March 2007

Oracle to acquire Hyperion, claims BI supremacy: Oracle will pay $3.3 billion to acquire Hyperion, a business intelligence and corporate performance management vendor.

Oracle announces Tangosol deal: Oracle's Tangosol acquisition will allow the database giant to enter the emerging Information-as-a-Service (IaaS) market, experts say.

April 2007

Oracle to buy Lodestar: Oracle announces plans to purchase Lodestar Corp., a provider of meter data management and competitive energy software for the utilities industry.

July 2007

Bharosa to give Oracle users transaction security: Oracle's acquisition of Bharosa Inc. will fill a key hole in Oracle's security lineup, according to experts.