Oracle is paying about $9.3 billion to buy NetSuite, the company that pioneered cloud-based accounting. In a deal expected to close this year, Oracle will pay $109 per share in cash for the target company. Both were founded by Larry Ellison with NetSuite founded in 1998. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd said in a prepared statement the company will invest heavily in both product lines.
There was no immediate word on the status of NetSuite founder Evan Goldberg, the company's CTO, or CEO Zach Nelson. Both are Oracle veterans and close Ellison, who owns a majority of the shares, but who placed them in a separate corporations so he could not vote them.
Nelson became CEO of a company, then called NetLedger, in 2002. He changed the name and transformed its strategy from selling low-end accounting software for $5 per month to an organization that has deals with enterprise-level companies. Over the last two years, Nelson appeared to be in a succession transition as he turned the president's job over to COO James McGeever.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind
