Oracle Cracks a Deal With Opower for $532 Million

In a turn of events Opower, the most popular energy analytics company has struck a deal with computing giant Oracle with the gross amount of nearly $532 millions, a deal that would get finalized by the end of this year, with approximately 30-percent premium share owned by Opower till the share market got closed on Friday.

In his official tweet, Chief Executive Daniel Yates wrote: "Big day today at the O: opower.com/oracle/ POW!!!!!!!". For all those who aren't aware, Opower headquarters lies in Arlington, Virginia and it sells its data services to tens of millions of houses enabling them to track down energy-use trends that are most popular. Not just this, Opower services are being used by more than 100 utilities that majorly includes the names of PG&E and Exelon that makes use of their service to meet state-to-state energy efficient standards.

Opower came into existence in 2007 and went live in public two years back in 2014 and just last year it reported a loss of $45 million (nearly INR 298 crores) despite the fact that the company's annual turnover in that year was $145.7 millions (nearly INR 966 crores) and post the downfall, the company has taken drastic measures and has stepped beyond its core analytical business to find and implement new ways of engaging their customers with the utilities for example: notifying the users by a text message whenever their energy use trends crossed the over limit or went out of phase.

The news becomes important since just last week Washington-area news site ARLnow reported that Opower has let go about 7.5 percent of its global workforce. In the recent meetup with investors, Yates quoted "While energy efficiency has historically been the primary driver of new client acquisition, this year was the first time we saw customer care fuel a significant number of deals."

Another significant milestone achieved by the company is that it has begun making international tie-ups clear example of which is its tie-up with Tokyo Electric Power that happened in 2013. The Tokyo Electric Power is a Japanese public utility at the center of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant failure following a tsunami in 2011. Following the tie-up, Opower's Chief Financial Officer, Thomas Kramer, in an official meeting with investors said 10 percent of the company's 2015 revenue comes from international business.

Many wonders as to what made Oracle purchase Opower and in an attempt to clarify, Oracle stated that the buyout is a part of an aggressive move to acquire cloud-based data companies changing the way numerous entrenched industries operate. Oracle Chief Executive Safra A. Catz said: "The move to the cloud is a generational shift in technology that is the biggest and most important opportunity in our company's history."

Despite the probing, authorities from both the companies declined to comment and as of now the announcement enlists just the buyout information and nothing else disappointing a lot many users. Oracle also buys out Textura, known for selling software for construction management for nearly $663 million and this must not be overlooked by two other tie-ups Oracle got successful with since in January, the company announced plans to buy web analytics firm AddThis and, just a month later, declared that it is buying cloud analytics firm Ravello Systems.

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