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Oracle Shells Out $1B To Buy ATG

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the that's-a-lotta-clams dept.

wiredmikey writes "Oracle announced this morning that it would pay $1.0 Billion in cash to acquire ATG, a provider of high-end e-commerce software."

3 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Firsrt question by afidel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yep, at ~$1M per customer Oracle's obviously expecting some serious revenue generation from this acquisition.

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  2. Using ATG in 1998... by dmorin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was using ATG's products back in 1998. This was before even Java Server Pages had caught on (one of my great regrets in life was having the opportunity to write a JSP book and turning it down :( ). If I remember correctly they even told us that Sun used some of their patents in developing JSP (though don't hold me to that, it was a long time ago). Their technology was very ColdFusion-like, trying to create an entire programming language complete with conditionals and looping structures all inside a markup syntax. But once you got used to it, it was very powerful. We ran our entire ecommerce platform on it for buying and selling mutual funds, encompassing 16 business units. It was a fun company, founded by some wanna-be rockstars (Jeet, really - not so much Joe). They threw a heck of a party. At least one of them ended with a shirtless Jeet playing guitar inside a gogo-dancer's cage. Ah, memories. I think that was the party that took place in New Orleans, where I bumped into my very drunk "customer advocate" coming down Bourbon Street, who asked me if I was having a good time. Apparently not as good as he was. Funny story - I got a tour of the place once. This was during a time when we were trying to use their brand new adapter for the content management system Documentum, and it was not going well. During the tour, before being shown engineering, my tour guide (Hi, Katja!) paused and asked me if I could identify my technical contact by sight. I said no, so the tour continued. I honestly think they were afraid I was going to make a scene. I used to own some stock, I'll have to go see if I ever dumped it.

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    1. Re:Using ATG in 1998... by AtlantaSteve · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think that was the party that took place in New Orleans...

      Ah, yes. Around 2000 or 2001, my then-employer rewarded some overtime by sending me to New Orleans for the "ATG Open"... ATG's version of Java One. ATG hired a hundred or so jazz musicians to stand around the hallways of the hotel playing music all day. They hired a few dozen more people to dress up as the company mascot (a square with a dot in the center), just to stand around the hallways for the hell of it waving to everyone. Free booze was everywhere, and at night the hotel conference rooms were turned into dance parties with half-naked women suspended from the ceilings in cages.

      On the last day, they closed off Bourbon Street for a parade with all the musicians and weird "dot" mascots. That night they rented out the freaking Superdome for a jazz/rock concert, along with carnival rides and a field goal kicking contest (NOTE: Football kickers deserve respect, 25 yards is a LONG way!). On our way out, they gave each attendee hundreds of dollars worth of premium-quality swag... designer pens, football jerseys, and a weekend luggage bag that I still take to the gym today.

      I miss the dot-com years.