NEW YORK — Continuing its push into retail technology, Oracle intends to acquire upstart point-of-sale software maker 360Commerce.
The deal is expected to be completed later this month. Terms were not disclosed.
Retail executives familiar with the firms said the move should benefit them and their customers.
“It certainly raises 360Commerce’s place in the market,” said Marc Saffer, a consultant based in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., who was previously chief information officer at Columbia House and Footstar, and worked for Macy’s East and The Estée Lauder Cos. “They’ll have the backing of Oracle. I can’t imagine they won’t be even more of a POS company than they were. It certainly rounds out Oracle’s offering in the retail space. They can’t do it without at least a decent POS offering, and 360 gives them more than that — it’s a full-fledged store offering.”
360Commerce makes integrated software for running stores that includes POS, back office, inventory management and workforce scheduling. Although the company has only 22 customers, its software gained attention when it was quickly adopted by large, well-known retailers with many store locations. 360’s customers include Sears, Gap, Urban Outfitters, the Stein Mart department store chain, Circuit City, Home Depot, Federal Express and Kinko’s. A privately held company, 360 was founded in 1992 and now has 220 employees. It is based in Austin, Tex.
“Oracle has put together a very strong retail offering,” said Mike Prince, vice president and chief information officer for Burlington Coat Factory of Burlington, N.J. The company uses financial and other software from Oracle, price optimization from recent Oracle acquisition ProfitLogic and gift registry software that initially came from 360Commerce but now belongs to Burlington. The retailer has no plans to upgrade its POS, which was developed in-house and is based on the Linux open-source operating system. Burlington Coat Factory is considering buying 360Commerce’s returns management software, however.
“They were a front-runner before we heard about this acquisition, and they’re probably even more of a front-runner now,” said Prince. “We have a good association with Oracle and Oracle products, and we view this as a very favorable development.” Being folded into the Oracle umbrella strengthens applications from companies such as 360Commerce and ProfitLogic because the applications are more likely to stay current with industry standards than third-party software, which often lags behind, he said.
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Oracle is integrating software from recent acquisitions Retek and ProfitLogic, and intends to use 360Commerce’s software as its main POS offering rather than Retek’s, said David Boyce, Oracle’s retail global head of marketing. Oracle may decide to replace 360Commerce’s workforce software with its own in the future, he added. Otherwise, there is little overlap between Oracle and 360Commerce products, and 360Commerce customers can expect continued support and development from Oracle, said Nikki Baird, Forrester analyst.
“Oracle has put their money where their mouth is in terms of their dedication to the retail space,” said Baird. “It still remains to be seen how well they can make their pieces work together, but I have more concerns about how it will work on the enterprise side than the store side.” As for 360Commerce, she said, “They have made a very strong play in a short amount of time. They have next-generation architecture, and they’ve proven its scalability in deployments like Home Depot.”