Earlier this week, Oracle announced that it was acquiring Instantis which will close by the end of this year, assuming there are no last minute issues with approvals. Between now and the final close, Instantis will continue to operate as an independent company although this amount of change on an organization always has some impact. While this announcement is yet another acquisition in a long list by Oracle, how will Instantis fit in with the existing Oracle applications in the Primavera Global Business Unit?
Who are Instantis?
Instantis is a private company formed in 1999 and based out of Santa Clara, CA that offers Project Portfolio Management (PPM) products for IT organizations, new product development and process improvement initiatives. Their customers include industries like manufacturing, health care and the services industry as opposed to the traditional project orientated industries of Engineering & Construction, Oil & Gas and Utilities. Instantis was also positioned in the “Leader” quadrant in Gartner’s 2012 Magic quadrant for cloud-based project and portfolio management services.
The Instantis product suite is all web-based offering customers a choice of a cloud-based or on-premise solutions. Their EnterpriseTrack application enables IT departments, product development teams, and business process leaders to manage multiple corporate initiatives, and improve strategic alignment, execution, and financial performance. Instantis enables a broad range of users to manage multiple initiatives through a single, simple to use, top-down system.
The People
The Instantis management team and employees are expected to join Oracle as part of the Oracle Primavera Global Business Unit, ensuring the continuity of products and services delivery for Instantis customers, and bringing significant domain expertise to Oracle.
What Does This Acquisition Mean?
“Organizations realize the need for a more simplified approach to address project portfolio management initiatives – and yet most solutions are too complicated and expensive to deploy,” said Mike Sicilia, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Primavera. “By adding Instantis, Oracle can help customers gain complete visibility and control of their mission-critical project initiatives using a top-down approach suited for projects throughout the entire organization.”
That’s the press release; but there does appear to be some conflicting statements about the future of the Instantis applications. By combining Instantis with leading capabilities from Oracle’s Primavera and Fusion Applications, Oracle expects to provide the most comprehensive set of cloud-based and on-premise Enterprise Project Portfolio Management solutions allowing customers to plan and execute initiatives throughout their organizations.
And then Oracle states that they are currently reviewing the existing Instantis product roadmap and will be providing guidance to customers in accordance with Oracle’s standard product communication policies. Any resulting features and timing of release of such features as determined by Oracle’s review of Instantis’ product roadmap are at the sole discretion of Oracle. All product roadmap information, whether communicated by Instantis or by Oracle, does not represent a commitment.
One thing this acquisition does do is strengthen Oracle’s own cloud services portfolio as well as it’s customer base, adding companies such as Verizon, Xerox , DuPont, Baxter, Credit Suisse, Axis Capital and National Grid.
Summary
As with all these acquisitions, we need to let the dust settle and get past the press releases. There is a great opportunity for improved products to come out of this along with exciting new capabilities. As you can see, there is definitely change coming and we look forward to what’s to come next from the Primavera Global Business Unit.
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