U.S. Attempts to Block Oracle Bid for PeopleSoft

AliasF97 writes "Thought you all might be interested in this story about the U.S. government attempting to block Oracle's bid for PeopleSoft via a civil anti-trust lawsuit. Seems to me that the courts are going to have their work cut out for them on this one. Also, the photo of Ellison is kind of comical. If you were to throw a black cape and a tall hat on him, he could be a circus magician."

Ellison is pure evil

[evil-empir3]

Why isn't the /. crowd upset about this madman? *boggle*

Shoot my dog will you...

[saitoh]

This shouldnt happen, but for different reasons (other then I'm working with PSoft at my uni, but anyway).

Ellison and his company bungled this one big time. They badmouthed the company, and on Larry King Live, Oracle openly stated that they would kill off the PS product line after the take over (besides the kill clause in their constitution which they didnt research, it was just a bad PR move). With Sparky being the job runner in earlier PeopleSoft releases, Conway made an interesting analogy that they were going to shoot his dog, and I can remember at the 2003 Peoplesoft Conference in the fall that Conway walked out on stage with his dog (both wearing a bullet proof vest), and proclaimed that he would not let his dog be shot and the crowd went wild.

This deal was just destined not to happen after Oracle's management bungled it. Read over at itmanagersjournal for an interesting history lesson at why they bungled it.

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Re:Proof

[Killswitch1968]

A post that was quickly modded down had similar arguments, albeit more agressive:
http://solohq.com/Articles/Rowlands/Antitrust_Laws --A_Joke.shtml

Re:Fuck Antitrust Laws!

[4b696e67]

I would have to disagree. Just look at the mess that was going on in the railroad/steel industry before the trust laws were in force. If you think Billy G. is bad you should read up on J.P. Morgan. I'm usually one that is all for government staying out of private enterprise, but I would hate to imagine what kind of world we would be living in without Roosevelt and his trust-busting at the turn of the century.

Re:Peoplesoft?

[jours]

This has been bugging me for a while now...

...but not long enough to RTFA.

"PeopleSoft and one other firm--SAP--are the only companies that compete with each other to develop and sell enterprise human resource management and financial services software for large businesses and government and nonprofit organizations"

Re:Shoot my dog will you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle is not only battling Peoplesoft's tenacious shareholders, but the big Tech Ed userbase that does not want to spend millions to convert their systems to Oracle.

This impacts taxpayers too as some govermental districs and departments are also Peoplesoft clients.

If Oracle wants to do this, they need to consider the cost of conversion or they will continue to meet with resistance from the users as well as the shareholders.

Re:Reasonable application of antitrust law

[jours]

...the Peoplesoft stock price going down instead of jumping to 26 (the Oracle bid) says what the market thinks about the takeover

Not really. Yahoo Finance [yahoo.com] shows that PSFT jumped almost 20% last June when Oracle's takeover bid was announced.

There's no reason to expect the stock to jump on an announcement that the takeover won't happen. And investors won't have much patience for a long legal battle if Oracle fights it [yahoo.com].

Merging Certifications

[jimmyswimmy]

The way I see it, at least one good thing could come out of this. If Oracle and Peoplesoft merge, you can save money on certifications. Just think, they could all merge together into Micro-People-Orcl-soft and then maybe there'd be just ONE BIG TEST. And we could all run Linux instead.

Re:Reasonable application of antitrust law

[birkhouse]

"leaving the market to Oracle and SAS (the European gorilla in the field)." I think you meant SAP, which is based in Walldorf, Germany. SAS (the software company) makes business intelligence tools and is based in Raleigh, NC, USA. SAP is supposedly "running" the majority of the Fortune 500's, with PeopleSoft and SSA lagging far behind. The Oracle takeover (if it happens) may actually shake SAP's hold on the ERP world by consolidating Oracle ERP / PeopleSoft customers and widening the Oracle base.

As a PeopleSoft employee....

[Ma$$acre]

I have to say this is great news. I'm a long time employee, and I have skills that could take me to many companies, but I choose this one for many reasons.

Oracle started this bid and has continued it as a way of disrupting business, creating FUD, and trying to change PeopleSoft's market perception. I've worked with both products and I can tell you that there are very few who would claim Oracle's product, support or business tactics are better than PeopleSoft's. That's not saying that any ERP product doesn't have it's pitfalls, but our customers are some of the most loyal and it's not without good reason.

I'm all for the free market, but the proposed takeover would undoubtedly crush innovation and increase prices. It faces many regulatory hurdles, from a DOJ lawsuit, to a potential EU lawsuit on the same grounds and a States Attorneys General lawsuit should it go forward. These people are the same ones /. praises when they hammer away at Microsoft for monopolizing the market... why would anyone here not support them on the same grounds for moving against Oracle?

I'm of the belief that anyone who wants this to go through is either paid by Oracle, has strong ties to Oracle, or is a short term investor. Larry has a magical way of using the "system" to his advantage and he has only done this to cause market confusion, disrupt PeopleSoft's business and drive up his sagging market share.

I'm of the belief he NEVER wanted to buy PeopleSoft. If Oracle truly wanted us, why not do it 2+ years prior when we were against the ropes? He would have gotten us on the cheap and had a nice chunk of customers. No, if he really wanted to buy PSoft, he would have never badmouthed the product, claim he was dropping support or any of the other shenanigans he's pulled. He's scared of the combined force of JDEdwards and PeopleSoft and the customer's he's been losing to us for years.

By the way, many PeopleSoft employees are ex-Oracle ones and every single one of them I know has said they will never work for Oracle again. Even current Oracle employees apologize for their boss... what does that tell you?

In the end, I have a feeling this will bite him on the ass.

SAP, BEA

[Unoti]

SAP has the largest market share, but it's really not a player in every segment of the market. SAP doesn't play very much in the small to medium sized business market very much. A company like, say, newegg.com might consider Oracle or Peoplesoft, but probably wouldn't go to SAP.

I didn't realize BEA was a player in the applications market. I thought they sold tools and infrastructure, not ERP applications. (Newegg might use BEA to run their web server, but wouldn't go to BEA for, say, warehouse and order management software.)

Regarding why the DoJ didn't have a problem with PeopleSoft buying JD Edwards, perhaps its because that merger was arguably beneficial to the customers. PeopleSoft is weakest in areas like hard core distribution and direct sales (like what newegg does), and that's where JD Edwards really shines. JD Edwards, on the other hand, is weaker in some areas where PeopleSoft is stronger, such as with their technology infrastructure (PeopleSoft is all web based) and their HR package.

Another aspect of this is that maybe the DoJ could see this was perhaps Justice was legitimately conviced that this deal was bad for competition. More information available here [eweek.com], and here (Is Oracle the New Neighborhood Bully) [newsfactor.com].

Well, lets not forget

[autopr0n]

That one of the main reasons anti-trust laws came to be was that corporations became so powerful that they could threaten the US government. Standard Oil could rase and lower oil proces at will, all across the US and they used that power to get concessions out of the government.

Re:SAP, BEA

[mahju]

I've worked with a range of these ERPs and advise companies on their choices. They aren't all the same thing.

Historically it goes like this;

PeopleSoft is the leader in Human Resources ERP software.

SAP leads manufacturing / distribution software

Oracle is best at Finance

All of theses top tier ERP systems offer enterprise wide applications. SAP has good HR solution, PS now owns JDE which gives it a look into manufacturing and dist, and Oracle is increasing its HR.

Basically Oracle has a load of cash from its Database income base, and by absorbing PS, it would greatly increase its HR market share, and more easily dominate the market.

Re:Peoplesoft @ Northwestern U

[filth grinder]

Hate to burst your anti-Peoplesoft rant, but you should shift the blame to your school's Peoplesoft admins. Peoplesoft's interface is incredibly customizable. They can control and change the "shotty html output" all they want. They can change it work fine in Mozilla, Opera, and IE. It's just bad implimentation on your schools part. They should get a competent web designer and a peoplesoft admin together and craft a better interface. Peoplesoft can look and function well when set up properly.