On the same day its plans to buy middleware giant BEA Systems rocked the technology world, Oracle also revealed Wednesday that its string of niche acquisitions will continue through the purchase of document-capture vendor Captovation.
The company's software will be plugged into Oracle's existing content management suite, according to a statement.
The transaction is expected to close by February 2008. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Captovation, which is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, provides software for check capture, high-volume scanning and browser-based information capture.
The two companies already have a close working relationship. Captovation's software is integrated with Oracle's Imaging and Process Management and Universal Content Management products, Oracle said.
In a letter to customers, Oracle's senior vice president for server technologies, Thomas Kurian, said that Captovation's technology will help customers deal with regulatory requirements for auditing processes and save money.
Oracle likely pursued Captovation in order to compete with top content management providers, and the deal echoes its earlier purchase of Stellent, according to analyst Alan-Pelz Sharpe, [writing in a posting] on CMS Watch.
"We believe that Oracle's 2006 acquisition of Stellent was in part driven for their desire for the somewhat neglected Optika technologies, which provide high-end imaging capabilities," Sharpe wrote. "The acquisition of Captovation today confirms that, and provides Oracle with a platform (once it is fully integrated tested and released) to compete head to head with EMC and IBM / FileNet for major imaging driven deals (still the ECM deals with the largest price tags)."
