For several years now I (along with a number of my colleagues) have been predicting that Oracle would acquire pure-play cloud ERP vendor NetSuite.

This wasn't exactly a rocket-science prediction to make -- both NetSuite's founder, Evan Goldberg, and its current CEO, Zach Nelson, are Oracle alumni. Add to that the fact that Oracle's founder, Larry Ellison, actually funded NetSuite originally (back when it was called NetLedger) and is still a significant shareholder, and the links were obvious. Not to mention the fact that Oracle has stated an intention -- after years of denying the cloud -- to be a substantive player in the space, along with the fact that NetSuite is increasingly seeing traction in terms of so-called "two-tier ERP" (when organizations use a product like NetSuite for branch units and roll financials up into a big ERP).