SiliconBeat

Acquisition-hungry Oracle takes pride in its track record of successfully buying and integrating other companies into its very lucrative software business. So without pausing as it prepares to digest Sun Microsystems, in a $7.4 billion deal that could be finalized next month, Oracle said today that it has acquired the intellectual property of the much smaller Conformia Software, for an undisclosed price.

Conformia makes business software that helps scientific and pharmaceutical companies manage the design and development of new drugs. Ironically, just two years ago, the Sunnyvale start-up received funding from an investment fund created by SAP, the German software giant that is one of Oracle’s biggest competitors in the market for business software applications.

Oracle has been expanding from its original core business of database software, moving aggressively into applications and middleware. A year ago, Oracle announced it was creating a global business unit to focus on the health sciences industry, which is a growing market.

Earlier this year, Oracle added to its offerings in that unit by acquiring another small company, Relsys, that made software for tracking and analyzing drug safety data. Oracle now says it will integrate Conformia’s technology with its other software products.

SAP, the German software maker with a large Silicon Valley presence, today announced its first cross-functional sustainability team and said that Peter Graf will lead the effort out of its Palo Alto office.

In a press release, the company said it would reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions down to year 2000 levels by 2020. Using 2007 as a baseline, this would represent a reduction in emissions of 51 percent. This would mean a reduction of 513,000t CO2 to 250,000t CO2. The company said it would use its own software to monitor and manage its sustainability effort, and that its reductions would comprise not only its direct emissions but also indirect emissions such as business travel.

“We have a moral obligation to start with ourselves and ensure that our business operates in a transparent and accountable manner, leaves a minimal environmental footprint and reaches out to improve the social situation of others,” said Leo Apotheker, SAP’s co-CEO.

Graf, a 13-year SAP veteran, will become the company’s first chief sustainability office (CS0), reporting to Jim Hagemann Snabe, an executive board member. Apotheker will speak Tuesday at CeBIT, an industry trade show, about SAP’s sustainability goals.