Oracle has announced the acquisition of TOA technologies, adding the latter’s product portfolio to its own. In due time, it will be absorbed into Oracle’s Customer Experience cloud and Oracle ERP solutions. The 11-year old TOA is based in Cleveland, Ohio and employs 500 people. It offers solutions for enterprises of all size and complexities; its three products are ETA direct as well as ETA workforce. Oracle acknowledged TOA’s leadership in what it calls “cloud-based field service solutions that optimize the last mile of customer service for enterprises by coordinating and managing activities between dispatchers, mobile employees and their customers.”

Oracle on Thursday announced itwas acquiring 500-employee TOA Technologies for an undisclosed sum. TOA Technologies offers a cloud service that manages “field service” employees, such as fleets delivery drivers or repair technicians l (i.e. the cable guy). Oracle will add TOA to its cloud, stitching it into Oracle’s cloud Enterprise Resource Planning apps (ERP). ERP is financial planning software. Although Oracle’s longstanding rival SAP is the company best known for ERP software, this acquisition is less about SAP and more about Oracle’s latest No. 1 rival: Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com is best known for its cloud software that helps salespeople do their jobs. But it also has cloud software for other corporate jobs including something called “Service Cloud” for customers service people. When a customer service rep needs to dispatch a repair person, Service Cloud taps into third-party apps for that, reports Computerworld. Options include ServiceMax, ClickWorkforce, or TOA. TOA built a version of its software on Salesforce’s cloud, Force.com, made specifically for Salesforce.com’s customers. So, by buying TOA, Oracle not only gets its own field service cloud, it gains leads for a chunk of Salesforce’s customers, those using TOA with Salesforce.com. Oracle wants those Salesforce.com customers. “We are Salesforce.com’s primary competitor … and we are going to pass Salesforce in cloud,” CEO Larry Ellison told analysts during the company’s last quarterly conference call.