Oracle Buys Opower to Read Utility Meters in the Cloud
Opower’s software powers more than 100 global utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Exelon and National Grid.
Oracle is going into the meter-reading-by-cloud business.A mere one week after buying Textura, a construction management and engineering SaaS software provider, Oracle on May 2 added Opower, a publicly traded provider of customer engagement and energy efficiency cloud services to utilities.The transaction is valued at approximately $532 million, or $10.30 per share, net of Opower’s cash.The acquisition is the fifth thus far this year — second in the cloud services sector — for the Redwood City, Calif.-based database, middleware, apps and data center hardware company.
Opower’s software powers more than 100 global utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Exelon and National Grid. Opower’s big data platform stores and analyzes more than 600 billion meter reads from 60 million utility end customers, enabling utilities to proactively meet regulatory requirements, decrease the cost to serve, and improve customer satisfaction.
Oracle Utilities and Opower thus will become the largest provider of mission-critical cloud services to utilities, said Rodger Smith, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Utilities Global Business Unit.Oracle will be going head-to-head with companies such as Silver Spring, VertexOne, WaterWorks, Muni-Link and UtiliyTrakR. Go here to see a listing of sector leaders.The transaction is expected to close in 2016, subject to Opower’s stockholders tendering a majority of Opower’s outstanding shares and derivative securities exercised prior to the closing of the tender offer, certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
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Source: eWeek