Portal Software was founded in 1985 as Portal Information Network, one of the first ISPs

Internet service provider

An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...

 in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded by John Little. The company offered its own interface through modem access that featured Internet email. Towards the end of the 1980s, the company offered FTP.

During this time, the company developed its own account management software. In 1992, John Little decided to focus on developing Portal's internal software for other ISPs, which he saw as a fast evolving market. Their ISP business was shut down and the accounts sold to Sprint. The company was renamed Portal Software in 1993 and Dave Labuda joined the new company as co-founder. Little and Labuda developed a scalable and flexible real-time enterprise software architecture, which they applied to the management of customers and revenue for internet and telecom service providers.

Portal Software developed a billing

Invoice

An invoice or bill is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer. An invoice indicates the buyer must pay the seller, according to the payment terms...

 and revenue

Telecommunications rating

In telecommunications rating is the activity of determining the cost of a particular call. The rating process involves converting call-related data into a monetary-equivalent value....

 software suite (Portal Infranet) primarily targeted at telecommunications companies and ISPs. It was one of the largest companies in its business. Customers of Portal Software included PSINet

PSINet

PSINet was one of the first internet service providers , based in Northern Virginia, and a major player in the commercialization of the Internet until the company's bankruptcy in 2001 during the dot-com bubble and acquisition by Cogent Communications in 2002.-Growth:PSINet was founded in 1989 by...

, AOL Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

, China Mobile

China Mobile

China Mobile Limited is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company that provides mobile voice and multimedia services through its nationwide mobile telecommunications network, the largest of its kind in the world...

, Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....

, France Télécom

France Télécom

France Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...

, iG Brazil, KPN

KPN

KPN is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company, including both 2G and 3G mobile operations...

, Orange UK

Orange SA

Orange is the brand used by France Télécom for its mobile network operator and Internet service provider subsidiaries. It is the fifth largest telecom operator in the world, with 210 million customers . The brand was created in 1994 for Hutchison Telecom's UK mobile phone network, which was...

, Reuters

Reuters

Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

, SIRIUS Satellite Radio

Sirius Satellite Radio

Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...

, Sprint Canada

Sprint Canada

Sprint Canada was a Canadian telecommunications service provider from 1993 to 2005, when was acquired by Rogers Communications. Sprint offered both residential and business services. It was a key company in the long distance wars of Canada.-Services:...

, Telefónica

Telefónica

Telefónica, S.A. is a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world...

, Telenor

Telenor

Telenor Group is the incumbent telecommunications company in Norway, with headquarters located at Fornebu, close to Oslo. Today, Telenor Group is mostly an international wireless carrier with operations in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia, working predominantly under the Telenor brand...

, Telstra

Telstra

Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....

, TIM

Telecom Italia Mobile

TIM is Telecom Italia's mobile phone brand, and runs a GSM, EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA network in Italy and Brazil.In Europe, TIM is part of the FreeMove alliance.TIM Peru was sold to América Móvil and rebranded Claro...

, U.S. Cellular, Vodafone

Vodafone

Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...

 and XM Satellite Radio

XM Satellite Radio

XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...

. In order to address the telecommunications market, Portal software acquired the InteGrate

InteGrate

InteGrate is a Software product written in C++ based on a pipe-lined high performance architecture for handling batch rating of telecommunications Call Data Records , developed by the German software company "Solution 42"....

 software from Solution42, a German company which had a history in high-performance telecommunications Rating

Telecommunications rating

In telecommunications rating is the activity of determining the cost of a particular call. The rating process involves converting call-related data into a monetary-equivalent value....

. This allowed a realistic performance of rating telephony usage events, something that was not feasible with the 'real-time' rating engine they had developed in-house.

Portal Software was bought by Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...

 in 2006 for an estimated $220 Million. Portal Software is now a business unit of Oracle. Like other acquisition software, Portal Software will be integrated with the core products of Oracle such as Siebel (CRM), PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided Human Resource Management Systems , Financial Management Solutions , Supply Chain and customer relationship management software, as well as software solutions for manufacturing, enterprise performance management, and student administration to large...

(ERP/CRM), JD Edwards (ERP). At the time of the acquisition Bhaskar Gorti was the company CEO, Dave Labuda CTO, Bruce Grainger Vice President of Americas, Tim Porter Vice President of EMEA.