Salesforce.com for sale?

Interesting rumor making the rounds this morning that Salesforce.com has approached Oracle and offered to sell itself for $75 a share. Wall Street is paying attention; shares of Salesforce.com have been trading as high as $10 a share above Monday’s opening price. If true the offer would be a huge premium over Friday’s closing price of $50.87 a share.

The rumor apparently started with a blog posting by Tom Foremski on his Silicon Valley Watcher Site. Foremski, a former reporter at the Financial Times and a reputable guy, attributes his scoop to a “reliable source.”

No way to know if Foremski’s source is accurate, but even if he or she is, I’d be surprised if Oracle is really interested. In a quick note this morning, Cowen analyst Peter Goldmacher, who has followed both companies closely for some time, says “While we would not be surprised if [Salesforce.com] made such an overture, we would be very surprised if Oracle didn’t laugh them out of the building.”

Goldmacher notes that the deal would start by knocking a full point off Oracle’s margins and would take Oracle way down market (that is, to smaller customers) an opportunity the company has repeatedly said it has no interest in. It’s also worth noting that most Oracle acquisitions have been very bottom-line-oriented. That’s because most of the targets have had large streams of recurring maintenance revenue, which helps margins and earnings. Salesforce.com’s software as a service model is completely different.

To be candid, I was wrong about Oracle and BEA Systems. So maybe I’m misreading this one as well. But for now, I’d remain very skeptical.

I welcome your comments, tips and suggestions. Reach me at bill_snyder@infoworld.com