Oracle is reportedly close to buying hospitality and retail technology vendor Micros Systems for more than US$5 billion in a deal that would be its biggest since the purchase of Sun Microsystems several years ago.
Micros and Oracle are conducting exclusive negotiations but may not end up inking a deal, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
An Oracle spokeswoman declined comment. Micros didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report comes a couple of days before Oracle announces its fourth-quarter and year-end results.
While Oracle's Q4 is typically its most lucrative, a move to buy Micros now could provide CEO Larry Ellison and his team with a splashy start to the new fiscal year, which is also expected to see the rollout of many new products, including an in-memory option for Oracle's flagship database.
Micros sells products that hotels, restaurants, casinos, retailers, cruise lines and other industries use to serve customers and manage operations.
It had $1.27 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, and has 6,400 employees. Micros technology is installed at 370,000 restaurants, 30,000 hotels and 59,000 retail stores, according to its website. The company's products include both POS (point of sale) systems and a set of back-office applications.
Oracle and Micros already have an existing relationship, as Micros used Oracle's technology stack to modernize its Opera application suite for hotels, according to a case study posted on Oracle's website.
If it does acquire Micros, Oracle would likely align the company's products with its own software for e-commerce, marketing and support, giving it a potential leg up on rivals such as SAP and Salesforce.com, which are putting together similar suites of their own.
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com