Quick, someone hire a CFO for Ellison

Oracle might want to hire a CFO — to watch the till — before Oracle’s Larry Ellison gobbles up every software company in the country. Oracle has just acquired Cupertino’s Oblix, an identity management software company, backed by Kleiner Perkins among others, for a reported estimate of $100 million or so.

(UPDATE: We’ve since heard the Oblix deal was more like $90-95, though that’s not definitive. Fact is, Oblix raised about $93 million in their first seven rounds of financing, and an undisclosed amount in their last one, so they pretty much sold at a price where investors didn’t make any $. Since we’re talking about the deal frenzy, look to the other indentity management players in the field, Ping Identity and Dick Hardt’s company, Sxip, for coming action. And where Larry is involved, you can pretty much assume SAP is involved. We note that SAP’s Jeff Nolan was even thinking about identity management in the shower recently)

Looks like deals are flying at every level. Here’s our story today about how buyout action is likely to continue in Silicon Valley. The pace of venture deals isn’t too shabby, either. Bob Kagle, venture capitalist at Benchmark and an early backer of eBay, recently told us: “Venture industry activity has really picked up over the last few months. Decision cycles are speeding up, valuation levels are going up, and due diligence is going down.” Here’s why.