Expert Predicted An Oracle-Salesforce Acquisition A Year Ago

Josh Dulberger, Head of Product at Estimize, predicted that Oracle Corporation ORCL would acquire Salesforce.com, Inc. CRM a year ago on Mergerize, which is powered by Estimize.

Dulberger’s prediction was on the SaaS business model and major players going back to 2004 and he remained convinced of his thesis.

Dulberger explained his reasoning to Benzinga, noting that Oracle purchased “SaaS poster-child RightNow” for $1.5 billion in 2011, and took “a serious stake in the software as a service business model, which has grown to be a $1B in revenue business for them.”

Next, Dulberger noted that on Oracle’s recent Q2 earnings call, Larry Ellison made the following statement:

“We are well on our way to selling over $1 billion of new SaaS and PaaS business in calendar 2015. Salesforce.com has announced that it also expects to add about $1 billion of new SaaS and PaaS business this year. So it’s going to be a close race who sells more in the cloud this year, us or them. Stay tuned.”

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Dulberger said it was “hard not to see a wink in that comment in retrospect” and he believed “Ellison has seen that SaaS (cloud software) will likely become Oracle's dominant business and sees Salesforce as a way to become the largest player in the space.”

Dulberger’s current analysis included that fact that “Salesforce brought in $5B last year, up more than 30% over the prior year, and continues on a very steady revenue train.”

While “other suitors might have the funds, Ellison was in the seed round for his former employee, Marc Benioff. That, along with its aggressive acquisition history, make it difficult to imagine Oracle standing by while [Microsoft Corporation MSFT, International Business Machines Corp. IBM, or SAP SE (ADR) SAP] make a move on the company.”

Salesforce recently traded at $72.83, down 2.44 percent.