Rumor Mill Buzzing With Speculation Of Pending Automation Acquisitions

Following Oracle’s acquisition of the assets of Market2Lead last month, the industry grapevine has been buzzing with talk of other pending deals. The latest reports have Salesforce.com in talks to acquire Genius.com, although neither company would confirm or deny the possibility of a deal.

Back in April, Salesforce announced a definitive agreement to acquire Jigsaw, a leader in crowd-sourced data services. That deal was valued at approximately $142 million in cash, but insiders say Salesforce has set aside more than $500 million for other strategic acquisitions.

Genius.com could be a good fit for Salesforce as it is currently the top ranked marketing automation solution on Salesforce’s Appexchange and would provide Salesforce with the expanded email capabilities the company has reportedly been looking to add. Genius.com also recently launched a new Genius for Chatter app on Salesforce.com's ChatterExchange, one of the first apps to leverage the social components of Chatter now available in the Force.com platform.

Further fueling the speculation of a potential Genius.com deal was the company’s recent emphasis on “achieving profitability this year,” and streamlining operations, which reportedly included a small reduction in the company’s workforce.

If Salesforce.com were to acquire Genius or another marketing automation vendor, industry insiders say it could open the floodgates of mergers with other leading CRM players. Should a leading CRM vendor add expanded email and lead management capabilities, it could become a competitive necessity for other vendors add those features and acquiring one of the emerging demand generation providers could be a logical path.

In addition to the field of CRM vendors, industry insiders have suggested that marketing communications/advertising agencies, such as WPP Group, could be a potential suitor for one of the marketing automation vendors. Through WPP Digital, WPP has made acquisitions and strategic investments in companies that “improve the Group’s understanding of the digital space and provide access for WPP companies and their clients to a portfolio of digital experts.”

There is also some rumblings that Adobe Systems could eventually acquire one of the automation vendors. Last year, the company acquired Omniture to integrate the company’s web analytics, measurement and optimization technologies with Adobe’s content creation tools.