Oracle in talks to buy hospitality software player Micros for more than US$5bn

18 Jun 2014

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle

Business software giant Oracle is in talks to acquire hospitality software player Micros Systems for more than US$5bn.

The deal signifies an acceleration of Oracle’s march into the cloud, especially in terms of making powerful enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems accessible across a multitude of devices.

The acquisition of Micros would mark the largest acquisition by Oracle since it acquired Sun Microsystems in 2009 for US$5.9bn.

Both Oracle and Micros are understood to be locked in exclusive talks and the deal is far from delivered, according to Bloomberg.

It is understood that Oracle came close to acquiring Micros Systems six years ago but the deal fell through at the last minute.

Oracle has reportedly spent US$50bn acquiring 100 companies in the past decade.

Oracle is due to report its quarterly earnings tomorrow.

The company may be late to the cloud computing game but earlier this year at an Oracle CloudWorld event, CEO Larry Ellison opined that cloud computing gives the company “a lot of market to pursue”.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com