Oracle has secured broad approval for its proposed $3.3bn acquisition of business intelligence (BI) specialist Hyperion, despite rivals' claims that it now faces a major integration challenge to bring together its various reporting toolsets.

Oracle said it will announce integration plans following the expected completion of the deal in April, but insists the two vendors' portfolios are " very compatible". Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, said that Hyperion's strength in performance management software aimed at the finance department, coupled with Oracle's operational BI tools would create an "end-to-end" performance management suite that includes "planning, budgeting, consolidation, operational analytics and compliance reporting".

Experts agree the deal makes strategic sense, with Hyperion's performance management functionality plugging a key gap in Oracle's portfolio. However, opinions are divided on how simple the integration path will prove.

Alys Woodward of analysts IDC said that Hyperion represented the best fit of all the BI players Oracle could have bought, adding that there was little overlap between the two portfolios and that, with the two companies already working as partners, technical integration should be relatively simple.

But Michael Azoff of analyst firm Butler Group argued the portfolios were less complementary than Oracle has claimed. "Hyperion has two specialisations: performance management and its online analytical processing (OLAP) engine," he said. "These are strong assets but there is a lot of overlap with Oracle's portfolio, particularly in the OLAP area."

Rival performance management specialist Cartesis seized upon this perceived overlap between the two companies' portfolios to stoke fears about the future of Oracle's various BI products. "Between Oracle CPM, Siebel Business Analytics and Peoplesoft EPM, what will become of Hyperion System 9 Applications?” asked Cartesis' Crispin Read.

However, Ronan Miles of the Oracle User Group insisted that while some concerns amongst customers were to be expected, Oracle's track record of continuing to support acquired applications for as long as customers required should allay fears of products being axed.

Meanwhile, Oracle also moved to alleviate concerns that Hyperion's position as a provider of reporting tools that operate in heterogeneous software environments would be compromised following the merger. The company insists it will "maintain support for heterogeneous databases, technology, and ERP and CRM applications", including those from arch rival SAP.

Woodward said she expected Oracle to continue Hyperion support for rival products, but added that it will have to deal with customer perceptions that it could begin to offer tighter integration with its own products. "The big concern from customers will be over whether or not Oracle will beef up integration between Hyperion and its databases and apps at the expense of integration with SAP and IBM," she said. "[The success of the merger] is all about the customer perception over how agnostic Hyperion remains."

However, Ian Charlesworth of analysts Ovum argued that although customer concerns were understandable, they were increasingly outdated. "If you are running Hyperion on IBM it is a rational reaction to be concerned," he admitted. "But the whole story around Fusion is that Oracle's applications are meant to play with other vendors' software. A few years ago, the fears would have been justified, but now Oracle has a much stronger story around supporting heterogeneous environments."