This morning Oracle announced it entered into an agreement to acquire Inquira, a Knowledge Management vendor. Terms of the deal were not specified, neither was price. Of course, obligatory quotes from all sides were included in the press release on how this is good for everyone.
Is it?
I have written a lengthy research note evaluating the deal, repercussions for end-users and vendors, and looking at what happens next in the market. It has been distributed to my clients via separate email, but I am going to include three key points I made in it:
- It was about time, no one is surprised by this move as it was widely expected.
- As Nitin said, it closes an era in KM – but I am far more excited about the opportunities it opens up for new vendors to create new knowledge paradigms.
- Inquira’s current OEM partners are the ones most affected by this deal, but they have been preparing for this day to come and they all have alternative plans.
I would strongly suggest that anyone interested in this deal spends more time analyzing the new paradigms of knowledge and how to manage them, not as much the KM world.
What do you think?
