This morning a press release was issued announcing Oracle’s intention to acquire Vitrue, adding our industry-leading social marketing and engagement platform to the Oracle Cloud. This is exciting news that will provide many benefits for the industry as a whole as we drive innovation forward and as social marches towards a mainstream medium for consumers and brands worldwide. We are thrilled to join a company with such an impressive client set, including 100 of the top 100 Fortune brands, and a global sales force that will help to expand our reach.

Today’s announcement enables Vitrue to raise the bar and continue to deliver on our primary goal – providing the most superior product coupled with superior client service. Quite simply, the combination of Oracle and Vitrue will enable us to offer and expand upon the most advanced and comprehensive social relationship management platform.

Our Vitrue team has been instrumental in delivering leading products and services and I look forward to offering brands new resources and expertise as a part of Oracle. This acquisition represents a validation of Vitrue’s vision that was launched in 2006 to enable marketers to connect with social consumers through a software platform. That vision expanded in 2008 when we began working closely with Facebook to broaden our capabilities for the platform, at a time when Facebook had less than 20 million users.

Since then, social has exploded in popularity, and as Facebook closes in on one billion consumers and Twitter tops 200 million users, emerging platforms like Google+, Instagram and Pinterest are gaining momentum. The growth is reaching beyond the internet-enabled computer to smartphones. Mobile proliferation is creating hundreds of millions of mobile consumers that make social networks their “on-the-go” digital portal. The combination of Oracle and Vitrue’s technologies, resources and expertise will position brands to effectively and efficiently take full advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.

Today’s news allows us to take that innovation and social technology for enterprises to an entirely new level. As you know, marketers have largely led their businesses into social and they are now looking to develop strategies that can help them deliver more meaningful customer engagement. Increasingly, other groups within the enterprise are also utilizing social media to build relationships with today’s socially connected consumer. Enterprises need a more comprehensive social relationship management platform that connects marketing, sales, commerce and customer service together, for a seamless brand experience. Together, Oracle and Vitrue’s comprehensive social relationship management platform will improve companies’ return on investment for social by integrating sales and marketing across paid, owned and earned media; and enhancing customer service through seamless, real-time responsiveness and high touch engagement.

The past six years have been a fast-paced, hard working and exciting experience for me personally. It has also been an incredibly rewarding ride because of the talented team I have the privilege to work with every day. At Vitrue, it is still business as usual with our team firmly focused on building innovative products and serving our customers. We look forward to the evolution and future collaboration with Oracle, when our best-in-class capabilities come together to create the industry’s first true social relationship management platform.

We will continue to provide updates in the coming weeks. Here’s to more exciting and rewarding days ahead!

For more information on the announcement, please visit www.oracle.com/vitrue.