Oracle Corp. has quietly bought the rights to enterprise content integration software from Providence, R.I.-based Context Media Inc.

Context"s software helps companies manage distributed content throughout their enterprise. The terms of the deal, which closed July 15, were not available. Oracle will make a product road map available in about 60 days, said Rich Buchheim, senior director for enterprise content management strategy at Oracle.

He suggested that the software could be used to help companies more easily link various types of content, such as files on a server, to a public folder used by workgroups.

In the long term, Oracle is considering how Context could be incorporated in the Oracle Fusion Middleware initiative, which could include embedding the technology in Oracle"s own portfolio, Buchheim said.

On an unrelated note, Buchheim said Oracle expects to ship Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g "imminently."

One analyst was upbeat about the Context Media deal because it will enable Oracle to integrate the records and document management products in its Collaboration Suite to heterogeneous repositories and file stores, said Connie Moore, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. It also gives Oracle a tool for ultimately integrating data and content to support information management.

"Context Media also has good experience and knowledge in rich media deployments that Oracle may be able to leverage," Moore said in an e-mail.