Oracle Buys SPL WorldGroup for Public Sector Business

Oracle Friday said it acquired SPL WorldGroup in an effort to better target public-sector utility companies. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

SPL develops revenue and operations management software for utilities, and tax management software for government agencies. Customers such as electric, gas and water utilities use the software for customer care and billing, mobile workforce management, outage and distribution management, and asset management. Government agencies use SPL’s software to help manage their financial relationships with constituents.

With the acquisition, Oracle said it will be in a unique position to offer an end-to-end packaged revenue and operations management solution for utilities. Often, conventional software products are customized for the utility market, but the result is usually inefficient, inflexible and expensive, Oracle said.

SPL employees will become a business unit within Oracle working on utility-specific products and continuing to develop the government tax-management software.

Oracle recently said that it plans to continue to pursue its strategy of acquiring companies as a way to drive growth. Over the past two years, the software giant has bought 20 companies. On Thursday, Oracle announced that it will buy content management software developer Stellent for US$440 million.

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