Despite the current recessionary times, this has not detracted it from this on-going process since ten of these have been in the last 12 months at a combined estimated cost of $750m.

With plenty of cash ‘in the bank’ (over $10bn) Oracle has been able to survey the market, identify those companies it requires to fill a particular niche and then go and acquire them. It is one of a handful of organisations that is in that fortunate situation, with Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft being some of the others. It’s a buyer’s market because as traditional sources of investment and cash get scarcer, including, of course, paying customers, even some companies with high-quality products have turned into desperate sellers.