Stephen Jannise, ERP Market Analyst at ERP Software Advice believes that Mark Hurd joining the executive team at Oracle significantly increases the potential that Oracle will go big with a services acquisition to beef up its Application Implementation and Management business. Oracle has a very large set of key services partnerships that it uses both as a channel to market, as well as an expert resource pool to augment implementation capability for its large and diverse suite of software products.
Stephen believes that Oracle is now ready to seriously beef up Oracle Consulting with a major IT Services acquisition and has named a number of potential targets – including IT majors like Accenture, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.
By acquiring the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002, IBM solidified its dominance over the global technology services industry. Hurd’s acquisition of EDS in 2008 was seen as a direct assault on IBM Global Services, making HP the strongest contender for IBM’s throne. Now, Hurd is essentially competing against himself, facing not only IBM but also the very beast that he created, HP Enterprise Services. Can he achieve for Oracle what he has already achieved for HP?
If so, Hurd will have more than one option to choose from. Capgemini has a relatively low P/E, and its recent acquisition of a majority stake in CPM Braxis, a leader in Brazilian IT services, makes it an even tastier morsel. However, there are many other fish in the services sea, so we’ve decided to look at several other services providers as well.