ERP for Banking Vertical - Oracle - i-flex Takeover

Last night, ex-Infoscians - Basab Pradhan, Phaneesh Murthy and one more gentleman from IBS were discussing the Oracle - i-flex Takeover on CNBC TV last night.

Their take was the following :

First, opportunity for Oracle to use i-flex's Banking Domain Expertise and relationships to create a Banking Vertical ERP Application to stay ahead of open source competition from players like mySQL and closed-source players like Microsoft's SQL Server.

Second, perhaps use i-flex in India for Global Banking BPO Opportunities.

Third, Good opportunities for future Funding of Software Product Companies in India since Venture Capitalists would now have examples of viable global exits.

My 2 paise :

i-flex has the Customer Front End - Relationships, the Banking Domain Expertise and a global software product. Database Technology, though critical in any industry essentially works in the background and remains operationally hidden from customers (except perhaps the CIO's and CTO's).

It would perhaps demonstrated more maturity of the Indian IT industry for an Indian software products company to take over a global database technology player rather than the other way around.

That would have really made news.

Maybe, Infosys should buy out discrete banking technology product companies to supplement their Banking Vertical Offering - Finacle towards a more complete customer offering.

They have the brand credibility and the cash to carry it out.

It would perhaps be a fitting answer to the Oracle i-flex Takeover.

Disclaimer - Kaytek has no affiliations with any of the companies mentioned above.