Legacy technology vendor Oracle can’t let competitor Salesforce.com capture all the market share of cloud-based software for coordinating digital marketing efforts. So Oracle is spending $1.5 billion for a 15-year-old company called Responsys. Oracle announced the deal earlier today. It should close in the first half of next year.

Oracle today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Responsys, Inc. (NASDAQ: MKTG), the leading provider of enterprise-scale cloud-based B2C marketing software, for $27.00 per share in cash or approximately $1.5 billion, net of Responsys’ cash. Responsys is used by the most respected B2C brands across the globe to orchestrate marketing interactions across email, mobile, social, display and the web, at massive scale.