Oracle buys Thinking Machines

Oracle has bought Thinking Machines for an undisclosed sum, the company said yesterday. Thinking Machines' Darwin software uses artificial intelligence techniques to trawl customer purchase activity logs and use that data to predict future buying trends. That clearly sits neatly alongside Oracle's strategy of using e-commerce to flog more database management software. Darwin will ultimately be integrated into Oracle's suite of software, but for now it will continue to be sold as a standalone add-on. ®