March 1st, 2007
Oracle's real target with Hyperion: CFOs
Oracle paid $3.3 billion for Hyperion to get better access to chief financial officers.
That's the biggest takeaway from Oracle's brief conference call on the Hyperion acquisition (Techmeme discussion). Yes, Oracle gets a strong business intelligence company. Yes, Hyperion gives Oracle more BI heft and nice dashboards. But this deal is all about selling the folks that pay the bills–CFOs.
Oracle president Charles Phillips acknowledged that Hyperion's 1,900 strong salesforce, which primarily deals with CFOs, was a big attraction. Hyperion's software wraps up financial information into a dashboard and helps companies deliver their regulatory filings to the SEC. While CFOs may write checks for other applications they know Hyperion's software well.
"There are a lot of other tools we have that we can sell. Normally the CIO reports to the CFO so that relationship was important," said Phillips.
Oracle's game plan: Use Hyperion's access to the CFO office to sell other applications. CIOs are critical, but CFOs call the shots. And if Oracle has any shot of poaching SAP customers–easier said than done–it needs CFOs on its side. In a nutshell, the Hyperion purchase is about access. Phillips said:
"Analytical applications are critical to CFO's office. This is the system of record for regulatory filings. They have a strong reputation with CFOs. That allows us to focus CFOs on other applications."
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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