Evidently there aren’t any interesting software companies to buy, so Oracle just dropped a cool $2B (as in Billion, sports fans) on Acme Packet. These guys build session border controllers (SBC), VoIP telecom gear. As Andy Abramson says:

This is an interesting grab by one of the tech world’s true giants because it sqaurely puts Oracle into a game where they begin to compete with the giants of telecom, many of whom run Oracle software to drive things including SBC’s, media gateways and firewall technology that’s sold.

This is an interesting turn of events. Obviously Oracle dipped their feet into the hardware waters when they put Sun Microsystems out of its misery a few years back. But this is different. This isn’t directly related to their existing businesses, but instead subsuming a key technology for one of their major customer segments: telecom carriers.

So how long will it be before Oracle decides they want a security technology? They have some identity management stuff – actually a bunch of it. Both their own and stuff they inherited from Sun. They don’t currently have security hardware or even core security software. But since security is important to pretty much every large enterprise segment Oracle plays in, you have to figure they’ll make a move into the market at some point. Clearly money isn’t an issue for these guys, so paying up for a high multiple security player seems within reach.

Yes, I’m throwing crap against the wall. But the security investment bankers must be licking their chops thinking about another deep-pocketed buyer entering the fray.

Photo credit: “straws” originally uploaded by penguincakes

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