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Fresh from a week of major announcements at its Oracle OpenWorld conference, the database giant has struck again.

Oracle yesterday announced its intent to acquire Stellent in a $440 million deal. Stellent is a global provider of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions.

Oracle said the acquisition will complement and extend its existing content management solution portfolio, which includes Oracle Content Database to store and centrally manage unstructured content in Oracle databases.

Stellent's Universal Content Management solution works with Oracle Content Database and offers a variety of solutions for Document Management, Web Content Management, Information Rights Management, Digital Asset Management, Records and Retention Management, Imaging, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance.

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Stellent, based in Eden Prairie, MN., has more than 4,700 customers worldwide, including such blue chip companies as Procter & Gamble, Merrill Lynch, The Home Depot, ING, and Vodafone.

In August, IBM purchased ECM provider Filenet in a $1.6 billion deal. Three years ago, EMC kicked off the ECM consolidation trend with its purchase of Documentum.

Analyst Charles King said Oracle's move puts in better position to compete against such rivals.

"Content management is certainly an area that's become increasingly important for any company that purports to act as an end-to-end infrastructure player," King, analyst with Pund-IT Research, told internetnews.com.

"You have IBM getting more involved, and EMC with Documentum doing some really interesting stuff strategically. It's a technology Oracle has to have if it wants to be taken seriously, and of course, it does."

King further noted that Stellent and Oracle probably share many of the same data center customers. "So it's a good fit, and where they don't share customers, it's a good opportunity for Oracle to make further inroads."

Oracle said it plans to hold a media event on Monday, November 13, where it plans to further detail its enterprise content management strategy.

Stellent CEO Robert Olson was bullish on the advantages of moving to become part of Oracle.

"Our leading product suite will have the dedicated resources and broad distribution networks of the largest enterprise software company in the world, which will elevate our award-winning solutions to new levels within the enterprise content management industry."

Pending completion of the usual regulatory processes, Oracle said it expects the acquisition to close by the end of this or early 2007.

Oracle said details, such as Olson's role and whether there would be any layoffs following the acquisition, were still being sorted out.

This article first appeared on internetnews.com.