I have been nice to most of Oracle's vertical buys - Retek, iFlex etc as againt its horizontal buys like PeopleSoft and Siebel. The latter were duplicative and essentially acquisitions of maintenance revenue streams. Investors like those, customers get questionable payback.
In the same vein, I like its two recent vertical acquisitions - Primavera - for project oriented businesses and AVT - which extends the Retek retail footprint.
I like it less for Oracle being visionary, but because for a decade now ERP vendors have over-promised and under-delivered verticals to non-manufacturing industries.
Of course, these (relatively) small acquisitions are then used to talk in terms of complete, global industry footprints as Oracle recently did with its "Global Insurance" offering.
A decade's worth of delays ain't fixed with single, small acquisitions. It's going to take years of sustained investments for Oracle to make these vertically complete. But it's good to see them make even the small, initial investments.
