April 2007

Oracle Acquisition of Hyperion – what does it mean for you?

Oracle, one of the world’s leading software companies, completed its acquistion of Hyperion for US $3.3bn in April 2007. 

We at ReportSource believe this is a ringing endorsement of the quality of Hyperion's product set, which now forms the corner-stone of an end-to-end Enterprise Performance Management offering from Oracle. We have taken the earliest opportunity to become an Oracle Partner in order to ensure continuity of service to our existing clients and to enable us to continue at the forefront of providing EPM solutions.

Why have Oracle bought Hyperion?

There are three major reasons:

• Oracle needs a Performance Management Solution. Oracle recognised that their existing offerings around Financial Consolidation, Planning and multi-dimensional OLAP analysis were relatively weak.  Hyperion’s products in these areas are widely renowned as best-of-breed, and are already in use in many Oracle customers.
• Hyperion software is best-in-class. Hyperion is highly regarded by the CFO and Finance departments in general.  Oracle is equally highly regarded by the CIO and IT department, and is recognised and used by operational departments across the enterprise.  Traditionally, neither company has crossed over well into the other space – this is already changing rapidly.
• Tapping the SAP market. There are many existing SAP customers that also use Hyperion software to manage their business.  Oracle has, for some time, been pursuing an acquisition strategy that enables them to provide a full product offering around existing SAP systems.

What does it mean for you…

... as an existing Hyperion customer?

You will benefit from the ongoing development of the Hyperion best-of-breed Performance Management products as part of the end-to-end Enterprise Performance Management offering from Oracle.  We expect that the benefits of increased development spend from Oracle will enable more rapid enhancement of the Hyperion product set, in particular leveraging the benefits of Oracle’s Fusion Middleware layer in future enhancements.

… if you are thinking about buying Hyperion software?

Firstly, the Oracle acquisition is a fantastic endorsement of Hyperion’s product set as the market-leader in Performance Management, as recognised by Gartner for some time.

Secondly, Hyperion’s traditional competitors, the remaining independent Performance Management vendors, are left in a state of uncertainty while the other major industry players consider their acquisition strategy.

… as an existing Oracle customer?

Many companies already talk about using Oracle to run their business and Hyperion to manage their business.

You now have the opportunity to integrate the leading Hyperion Performance Management products into your existing Oracle implementations retaining all the benefits of sourcing, support and maintenance from a single, world-leading software vendor.  ReportSource have substantial expertise in existing Oracle applications and database technology that we already utilise in supporting existing Hyperion clients – we are well-placed to help you plan your Performance Management journey to fully leverage the new tools in the Oracle armoury.

… as the CIO?

Hyperion’s System 9 software is already the most advanced and integrated Performance Management and BI toolset in the industry.  The systems architecture is already designed to be horizontally and vertically scalable; Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA) principles and techniques are used at all layers of the architecture, which in our view allows for the constructive ongoing development of the Hyperion toolset using Oracle’s Fusion Middleware layer.

As with Oracle’s own applications and other tools, all of which are gradually being re-written so that the next versions utilise more and more of the Fusion Middleware layer and its SOA, Hyperion’s tools will continue to develop and be integrated in similar fashion.  In the meantime, these tools already support highly open standards – you can be confident that implementation of Hyperion products into your architecture now will enable immediate business benefit, without jeopardising future development and upgrades in your systems roadmap.

What can ReportSource do for you?

Our background is founded in ERP and related technologies.  With the rapid convergence of these and the Performance Management solutions, we are ideally placed to help you leverage any current or future Hyperion investment.

Contact Us to discuss further how you can reap the benefits of this exciting development.

To understand more about the new Oracle view of the Performance Management market, please read What is EPM?