Oracle has been tipped as a bidder after its $219.2m acquisition last month of communication software provider MetaSolv Software Inc suggested it wanted to strengthen its position in telecoms software, an area where it arch-rival SAP AG is already entrenched.

Though there have been reports that Oracle president Charles Phillips met Intec’s chief executive Kevin Adams in London earlier this month, those close to the company said such a meeting would not be unusual because Intec’s software runs on Oracle databases.

The big attraction of Woking, Surrey-based Intec is that its share price has halved in the past year and its stock market value of 102.6m pounds ($198.2m) is only 90% of annual revenue.

However, earlier this month it issued a profit warning, cutting its forecast revenue for the year to September 30 from a range of 113m to 120m pounds ($218.3m to $231.8m) to not less than 111.7m (215.7m), below the 116.2m pounds ($224.4m) achieved last year. It has been hit by contracts delayed as a result of consolidation of carriers in the US market, which makes it particularly vulnerable.

Its main attraction to Oracle is that it would be able to add Intec’s customer base and retail billing software to the OSS service fulfillment suite it acquired with MetaSolv.

Oracle has made clear its commitment to further acquisitions as a means of gaining industry specific applications and expertise. Banking, telecoms, and utilities are likely to be the new battlegrounds between the two major enterprise software providers.