UPDATED 13:23 EDT / SEPTEMBER 18 2012

Oracle Writes Checks Instead of Code: SelectMinds Buy Adds to Social Strategy

Oracle is competing with SAP and Salesforce over the hearts of corporate users, and is hoping to gain a competitive edge via aggressive non-organic growth.  Underscoring this agenda is Oracle’s acquisition of SelectMinds today – terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SelectMinds offers a cloud-based recruiting platform that relies on social media to spread the word. The solution makes it easier for an HR department to post new openings on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and features a number of other unique capacities as well: job listings are automatically optimized for mobile browsing, there’s a crowdsourced referral system that can be used by both current and former employees, and SelectMinds also makes it possible to keep track of fitting candidates whose application was rejected on hold.

“Social and cloud are becoming no-brainers for CIOs and Oracle will increasingly move its franchise to these models,” says Wikibon founder Dave Vellante. “Where it can’t move fast enough and when startups have more functional products, Oracle will write checks instead of code. ”

SelectMinds’ platform will undoubtedly be used to supplement the technology that Oracle obtained through the $1.9 billion acquisition of Taleo of earlier this year. Taleo also offers HR SaaS, and the existing line-up could benefit a lot from deeper integration with social media and mobile.

These two trends are the big drivers behind the consumerization of the enterprise, and addressing these trends is vital for vendors that want to capitalize on the human factor. IBM is tackling this from a slightly different approach – instead of buying out a company that offers the underlying technology, it acquired a consultancy. Last month Big Blue announced an agreement to buy Kenexa for $1.26 billion.


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