Software giant Oracle (Redwood Shores, California, U.S.; www.oracle.com) has agreed to acquire Lodestar Corp. (Peabody, Massachusetts, U.S.), a provider of meter-data management and competitive energy solutions for the utilities industry. The transaction is expected to close in May 2007.

Oracle believes Lodestar is a good buy, because its products are complementary to the suite of utilities applications that Oracle acquired through SPL WorldGroup and are now offered by Oracle's Utilities Global Business Unit. Ultimately, the software company is striving to create the most complete end-to-end application suite to meet the needs of utilities. According to Oracle, the combination unifies mission-critical business processes for the enterprise, from database, enterprise reporting and infrastructure software, to revenue and operations management, to customer relationship management, and now, with the acquisition of Lodestar, meter-data management and competitive energy operation solutions.

“The advantage [of this acquisition] to the marketplace is that customers can now come to one major vendor and have most all of their needs met as far as mission-critical applications and integration of those mission-critical applications,” says Guerry Waters, vice president of marketing and strategies for Oracle's Utilities Global Business Unit.

The acquisition also helps address the cost of adding end-to-end business processes. “Utilities have to spend quite a bit of money today keeping applications integrated,” explains Glenn MacRill, vice president of North American sales for Lodestar. “So now we're coming to market with taking on more of the responsibility of the integration by offering productized information with these applications. So we address the cost issue, the ability to help utilities implement end-to-end business processes with integrated technology and also to improve on those processes.”

Oracle cites that more than 95% of Lodestar's customers are Oracle infrastructure software customers, and more than 50% of Lodestar's customers are Oracle applications customers. The software company says that the acquisition benefits both its customers and Lodestar's customers, as well as potential clients. The acquisition allows Lodestar customers to preserve their investments in Lodestar's product and vision. Oracle says that Lodestar's 125 employees are expected to join Oracle's Utilities Global Business. And, Lodestar customers will be better served under a stronger combined vendor with complementary products, says Oracle.

The software company is working toward giving utilities the tools they need to interact more with their customers on time-of-day pricing and demand-side management. “Utilities are starting to realize they've got to have much finer control of their distribution environment,” MacRill says. This is where Oracle is headed with its suite of applications because that's exactly where the utility industry is headed, says Waters.