Oracle buys ClearApp

Oracle has bought SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) business software maker ClearApp for an undisclosed sum.

Redwood City, California-based Oracle announced the deal yesterday. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Oracle plans to fold ClearApp’s web-based software into its Enterprise Manager products. The Silicon Valley company’s products are designed to measure the performance of various apps as they intermingle with each other.

ClearApp was founded in Mountain View, California in 2002. Two years later, it launched a biz software management program that looked at the complexities of applications built on BEA’s WebLogic Integration platform.

Since then it has designed models for other platforms that carry composites apps such as portal, BPEL, and ESBs running on IBM and Oracle’s J2EE application servers.

So, presumably, acquisition-hungry Oracle saw ClearApp as a complementary fit into its burgeoning portfolio. The software giant has been splashing plenty of cash of late at the biz software market. It’s already notched up seven buys so far this year, including the takeover of one-time rival BEA for $8.5bn. ®