Oracle Buys SaaS-based RightNowOracle Buys SaaS-based RightNow

The $1.5 billion price tag represents a nice premium on a company with a $220 million annual revenue run rate.

I was tempted to write "CRM vendor" RightNow in my title, but having been corrected (chastised?) once by RightNow CEO Greg Gianforte for that I won't make that mistake again. For two years, RightNow has defined itself as a Customer Experience vendor. A publicly-held company, for the most recent quarter RightNow posted revenues just under $55 million, a ramp rate of $220 million. Which makes the $1.5 billion price paid by Oracle a pretty nice premium.

When Oracle already owns multiple CRM platforms, why RightNow? Clearly the move to cloud for this particular application has not escaped their notice. SalesForce.com and RightNow have both been posting admirable growth with a SaaS-only model--RightNow’s revenue growth in the most recently reported quarter was north of 30%. Much as CEOs Ellison and Benioff have publicly bickered, clearly the cloud message was not lost on Ellison.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed though. I would have loved to see an Interactive Intelligence/RightNow combination. I believe the combination of real-time contact center and customer experience management is the right direction for the market, be it SaaS or premises-based. Instead of Oracle continuing to horizontally integrate, it would have been nice to see some vertical integration across the space.

I'm headed to RightNow’s Partner Summit in Colorado Springs, which I imagine will be a bigger party than anyone imagined. While they likely won't be in a position to say much, watch my tweet stream for updates.

Follow me on Twitter: @mcgeesmith