Primavera Systems has been acquired by Oracle, the two companies announced Friday. According to sister site SearchOracle.com (the source of the above link), the deal will close before the end of the year. Primavera's software will be called Oracle Enterprise PPM, and it will be its own global business unit within Oracle.

Oracle, an industry leader in enterprise resource planning and data management software, wanted Primavera for its project management software. According to an Oracle-Primavera FAQ, Primavera software is used by all five branches of the U.S. military, 75% of U.S. government agencies and more than 90% of the world's top engineering firms.

"[We expect] to provide the first comprehensive enterprise project portfolio management [PPM] solution that helps companies allocate the best resources, reduce costs, meet delivery dates and ultimately make better decisions, all by using real-time data," Oracle said in a statement.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, and until the deal closes the two companies will remain separate entities. That, according to the FAQ, means that Primavera customers should still call that company for customer support and can still buy software from Primavera if they so choose.

Given that, it's difficult, at the moment, to address one of the first questions that emerges whenever a company announces a major acquisition -- Does this deal make sense?

Brian Sommer, author of ZDNet's Software & Services Safari blog, writes in his Oracle + Primavera post that the deal should be a good one, provided that Oracle can avoid doing three things -- killing off any the Primavera product lines, jacking up product or service prices or forcing Primavera customers through an expensive upgrade or integration. If not, Sommer says, Primavera competitors will definitely see an opening.

One such competitor, CMiC, already seems to be chomping at the bit. In a statement entitled Primavera Purchase Will Not Change Oracle's Falling Fortunes in Construction, Bassem Hamdy, vice president of solutions, suggests that Primavera software will see a diluted "product vision" as a result of the acquisition. Hamdy also doesn't think Oracle will be able to successfully integrate Primavera software with Oracle ERP software.

We will certainly keep you posted as additional news and analysis emerged -- starting tomorrow, with a joint press conference featuring executives from both Oracle and Primavera.