Today Oracle and Primavera executives held a conference call to talk about what brought Oracle to acquire Primavera. In a phrase, it's enterprise project portfolio management.

Oracle, according to company president Charles Phillips, saw value in Primavera as a global firm whose PPM software addresses both mission-critical and industry-specific processes.

For Primavera, the appeal is the melding of its PPM software and Oracle's ERP software into what Primavera CEO Joel Koppelman is calling "enterprise PPM." This, he noted, helps customers couple financial information with "what if" analysis -- an "accurate look backward" and a "robust look forward," as he put it.

For both Phillips and Koppelman, the deal just made sense. Plenty of Primavera customers, including Suffolk Construction and Sikorsky Aircraft, already use Oracle's databases and middleware. In addition, the scale of Oracle's resources, from infrastructure to research and development, will help Primavera accelerate innovation, Koppelman noted. Phillips, meanwhile, said Primavera stands to reap the benefits of Oracle's experience in developing enterprise software functionality such as database management and security.

Also of note from the call:

• Primavera aims to keep working with its worldwide reseller channel to reach out to SMBs, ISVs and system integrators, Koppelman said.
• Primavera will continue to integrate with Microsoft Project, SharePoint and SQL Server, as well as SAP's NetWeaver, he said.
• Oracle plans to offer lifetime support for Primavera software and to beef up integration with its eBusiness, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft offerings, Koppelman noted.

As stated before, the deal is expected to close before the end of this year. Between now and then, the Primavera Annual Conference convenes in Las Vegas. We expect the agenda to be full of sessions about the transition from Primavera to Oracle.