Cloud-Rich

Oracle bought Eloqua for $871 million. That price is a 31 percent premium on the Wednesday closing price, and could suggest that other cloud-based marketing services are undervalued currently.

Particularly interesting in the match-up of Oracle with this particular type of marketing system is the idea that major ERP software producers wish to integrate into established marketing systems.

Eloqua went public only four months ago (at roughly half the price it just sold for). It has major clients, like Adobe.

Oracle bought Market2Lead in May, causing some analysts to extrapolate after Eloqua went public that Oracle might be interested in an acquisition in the near future. It was thought at the time that Oracle integrated better with Eloqua, whereas other firms, like Marketo, integrated better with competitors such as SalesForce.com.