UPDATE 2-Oracle to buy RightNow for around $1.5 bln

* Termination fee of $60 mln if bigger bid comes in

* RightNow shares up 19 percent premarket

Oct 24 (Reuters) - Oracle Corp struck a deal to buy RightNow Technologies Inc for around $1.5 billion, agreeing to pay a nearly 20 percent premium for the cloud-based customer service company.

RightNow's shares rose 19 percent in premarket trading.

Oracle has been stepping up its push to provide customers a range of services remotely through cloud technology including sales force automation, human resources and databases.

Oracle said on Monday it would pay $43 for each share of RightNow. The company's shares, which closed at $35.96 on Friday, rose to $42.87 in premarket trading on Monday.

Oracle said it expects the deal to close in late 2011 or early next year.

Rightnow may be required to pay Oracle a termination fee of around $60 million if it accepts a higher bid from another party. The termination fee could be around $18 million if the deal is terminated under certain other cases.

RightNow, which competes with much larger rival Salesforce.com in offering cloud-based customer services software, has benefited from a cycle in which more of its customers are looking to replace on-site software with cheaper Web-based products. Cloud computing allows companies to store data on remote servers.

In July, the company raised its full-year recurring revenue growth outlook to 27 percent from a a previous 24 percent.

The company was started by Chief Executive Greg Gianforte 15 years ago and over 2,000 organizations use its software.