Big Blue is taking on SAP and Oracle with the acquisition of Kenexa, a provider of HR consultancy and services that plays in the same pond as Success Factors. IBM agreed to pay $46 per Kenexa share, 42 percent more than the stock’s closing price on Friday and just 22 cents more than what KNXA is trading for right now.

WSJ reports that Kenexa shot up as much as 41 percent in trading this week, while IBM slightly slipped. FactSet estimates that the latter firm has about 27.4 million outstanding shares, valuing the deal at 1.26 billion dollars.

Here’s some more details from an official statement.

“Pending shareholder approval and satisfaction of regulatory and closing conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed during the fourth calendar quarter. The Company’s shareholders will be given notice and certain information about the transaction in a proxy statement that will be sent to shareholders. Following completion of the transaction, Kenexa will be wholly owned by IBM and its stock will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange.”

Kenexa has a lot in common with Success Factors, the HR software developer SAP acquired for the much bigger sum of $3.4 billion last year. For one thing, the analytics trend hasn’t skipped the consultancy’s attention, and Kenexa’s official site states that it leverages “proprietary cultural assessments“ in its market assessment services. The company also offers recruitment and social solutions, although its approach is based more on third party solutions and value-added services rather than its own technology.

A few months ago Success Factors had a big update as well. It updated its BizX suite with new mobile features and tighter integration with LinkedIn in order to make it easier for employees to communicate and share information.