Oracle To Buy MetaSolv

Oracle Corp. on Monday said it has agreed to acquire MetaSolv Software Inc., a maker of operations support systems for communications service providers, for $219.2 million in cash.

MetaSolv's products are used in service fulfillment, including provisioning, network inventory and activation. It's standards-based software supports many types of emerging services, including IP Multimedia Subsystems, Internet telephony, Internet TV, Internet-based virtual private networks, broadband and mobile services, as well as traditional voice and data services, Oracle said in a statement issued from the company's OpenWorld user conference in San Francisco.

Oracle plans to integrate MetaSolv technology with its own to offer "a fully integrated, end-to-end productized solution that will help service providers streamline the 'campaign to cash' process, optimize asset lifecycles and accelerate time-to-market of new products and services," Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle's Communications Global Business Unit, said.

Under the deal, Oracle would pay $4.10 for each MetaSolv share, or about $219.2 million. MetaSolv's employees would join the Communications Global Business Unit. The transaction is expected to close in late 2006 or early 2007.