Oracle to acquire cloud-based customer service firm RightNow for $1.5 bn

Enterprise software developer Oracle Corp today said that it will buy cloud-based customer service company RightNow Technologies Inc for around $1.5 billion.

The acquisition comes within a week of the enterprise software giant announcing its plans to acquire Endeca, a leading provider of unstructured data management, web commerce and business intelligence solutions for an undisclosed sum.

Montana-based RightNow, founded in 1997 by Greg Gianforte,  created a software product that was initially focused on customer service with an integrated knowledge base. As the company grew, it added marketing and sales functionality, voice automation, customer feedback management, analytics and a social platform to its product, creating a full customer experience suite.

RightNow's customer service cloud helps organisations such as call centers, the web and social networks to handle customer interactions. Its products are used by nearly 2,000 organisations across the world.

Its clients include British Airways, Nikon, British Telecom, Motorola, Black and Decker, Electronic Arts, Bank of New Zealand, Australian National University, the University of South Florida, Telstra, and Columbia University among others.

The company, which went public in 2004, has a market cap of $1.2 billion at market close last week.