Oracle buys logistics software maker G-Log

Oracle kicked off the second day of its OpenWorld user conference with an acquisition, scooping up Global Logistics Technologies (G-Log) for an undisclosed sum Oracle said Tuesday. Oracle plans to use G-Log's logistics software to boost its supply-chain management technology offerings.

G-Log is a privately held company based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, with a staff of around 175 and a customer list that includes DuPont, Halliburton Co. and Family Dollar Stores. More than half of G-Log's customers already run Oracle applications, Oracle said. Pending regulatory approvals, the companies expect the deal to close by the end of the year.

Oracle plans to use G-Log's GC3 software as the basis of a "logistics hub" capability in its forthcoming Project Fusion applications suite. The company intends to integrate GC3 with its own E-Business Suite, but GC3 will remain its own database instance and continue to interoperate with products from other software vendors. Oracle said it is considering a port of GC3 to the Oracle Application Server.

Buying G-Log has the potential to propel Oracle past SAP AG into the number-one position in the SCM (supply chain management) market, according to an AMR Research report on the deal. G-Log's technical architecture and industry niche fit well into Oracle's portfolio, but Oracle will need to stay focused on executing in a complicated industry vertical, AMR said.

"Oracle sales teams are in transition from the recent acquisitions of PeopleSoft, Retek, and most recently, Siebel -- all huge purchases that require a lot of resources," AMR's analysts wrote. "So far, it has managed, but it has a lot to digest."

Separately, Oracle formally launched the new Oracle Retail brand to unite its own technology with that it has acquired by buying Retek and ProfitLogic. It also announced a flurry of product updates and partnerships.

Five new CRM (customer relationship management) dashboards for tracking sales and service information will be available by the end of the year for Oracle's PeopleSoft applications, incorporating Oracle's BAM (business activity monitoring) technology. A new bundling deal with IBM Corp. packages Oracle's J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne and World software with IBM's midmarket-aimed eServer i5 520 machines, a combination the vendors hope will attract SMB (small and medium business) customers looking for single-server systems. Meanwhile, Dell has expanded its Oracle alliance and will begin selling the full line of Oracle E-Business Suite and J.D. Edwards applications.

OpenWorld has drawn a huge crowd to San Francisco this year: Oracle executives estimated the show's attendance at 35,000 people, 40 percent higher than last year's then-record total. Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison is scheduled to speak on Wednesday.

• Bookmark this page
• Share this article
  •  
  • facebook
  • slashdot
  • digg
  • Reddit
  • stumbleupon
  • linkedin
  • twitter
• Got more on this story? Email Computerworld
• Follow Computerworld on twitter

• Share
  Share this article

  •  google+
  • facebookfacebook
  • slashdotslashdot
  • diggdigg
  • RedditReddit
  • stumbleuponstumbleupon
  • linkedinlinkedin
  • twittertwitter
• print
• email
• Bookmark