Oracle Buys Endeca

The convergence of structured and unstructured information is driving the need for a common data management and analytics platform.

Oracle has entered into an agreement to acquire Endeca Technologies, a leading provider of unstructured data management, web commerce and business intelligence solutions.

A privately-held company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Endeca provides powerful and highly intuitive products that help companies analyze unstructured data, gain better business intelligence, and deliver a superior customer experience.

The combination of Oracle and Endeca is expected to create a comprehensive technology platform to process, store, manage, search and analyze structured and unstructured information together. The combination of Oracle ATG Commerce and Endeca InFront is expected to enhance cross-channel commerce, merchandising, and online customer experiences. The combination of Oracle Business Intelligence and Endeca Latitude is expected to provide a comprehensive business intelligence foundation and analytic applications, bringing together information from structured and unstructured data sources.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close before the end of 2011. Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently.

“The combination of Oracle and Endeca is extremely compelling in this changing data environment,” said Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Oracle Development. “Together, we will provide best-in-class technology to manage structured and unstructured data together; business intelligence tools to analyze structured and unstructured data together; and a broad suite of packaged applications which extends the value of unstructured data into ERP, Supply Chain, CRM, EPM, Web Commerce, and specialized applications. This technology will also allow us to integrate more comprehensive unstructured data management into Oracle’s engineered systems.”

Endeca Products

• Endeca’s core technology, the MDEX Engine, enables enterprises to correlate and analyze unstructured data.
• Endeca InFront is a leading customer experience management platform that enables businesses to deliver highly targeted and relevant customer experiences online with advanced merchandising and content targeting tools for web commerce.
• Endeca Latitude is a technology platform that enables businesses to rapidly develop analytic applications bringing information from many unstructured and structured information sources together.

“With more than 600 customers relying on Endeca’s solutions to deploy unified platforms for search, guided navigation, merchandising and interactive analytics of unstructured data, Endeca is recognized for its unique approach in hybrid search-analytical technology on diverse and changing information,” said Steve Papa, Chief Executive Officer, Endeca. “We bring successful deployments with large enterprises in key industries such as retail, distribution, media and publishing, government, and manufacturing and consumer packaged goods – many of these customers are also Oracle customers.”