Oracle to acquire cloud-based software firm Taleo for $1.9 billion

Oracle Corp yesterday said it was buying cloud-based human-resources software maker Taleo Corp, for $1.9 billion, the enterprise software giant's second cloud-computing acquisition in three months.

It is the latest big investment by Oracle in cloud computing, and comes just three months after it spent $1.5 billion for acquiring cloud-based customer service firm RightNow Technologies, whose clients include British Airways, Nikon, British Telecom, Motorola, Black and Decker, Electronic Arts and Bank of New Zealand among others (See: Oracle to acquire cloud-based customer service firm RightNow for $1.5 bn).

San Francisco, California-based Taleo makes human-resources software that runs on the cloud. It offers staffing management software designed to help large companies establish and manage staffing processes for professional, hourly, and temporary employees.

Taleo's application suite, which is a hosted subscription service, includes tools for adhering to regulatory requirements and aligning tasks with the available skills of the workforce.

It has more than 5,000 clients, more than half of whom are Fortune 500 companies, including Dow Chemical, Hewlett-Packard, UnitedHealth Group, Areva, Cargill, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Merck, Thomas Cook, Rolls-Royce and Qantas, but the company lost $14.5 million on revenue of $309 million last year.

The company, which went public in September 2005, has made nine acquisitions since 2003 to build out its online software portfolio.

Taleo solutions are available in 187 countries and in 31 languages. In 2010, Its data centres processed 47 billion transactions and 68 million transactions on a peak day.