Slashdot Mirror
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."
"said the combination of Oracle and PeopleSoft would hurt competition in the market for software sold to large businesses."
So they would hurt large businesses... right and I am buying that microsoft not offering patches helps businesses.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
His picture makes him look like "the rock". The caption under the picture should say something like "can you smell what I'm cookin".....
If you were to throw a black cape and a tall hat on him, he could be a circus magician. Now, if you but a black cape and stovepipe hat on him, he'd look exactly like Snidely Whiplash
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Where's the proof? I think before the feds stomp in to throw their weight around in the business arena, they better have a damn good reason they're spending my tax dollars to mess with the free market. And they'd better be prepared to prove it.
Since the threat of takeover looms until the case is resolved, or they drop their takeover bid, Oracle gets 'vaporware' benefits from having it out there, since long-term support for Peoplesoft products is threatened by the takeover, making potential customers wary of making a decision to buy now.
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.
A circus magician...with a net worth of about $15 billion.
This space intentionally left blank.
Maybe Larry doesn't contribute enough towards ... uh .. certain funding. Then again, maybe PeopleSoft has connections.
After the spying on the UN scandals in the news this morning my head is swimming.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm glad to see this! The Justice Department decision may have come after a big campaign from PeopleSoft, but that doesn't mean that blocking it is a bad thing for consumers. Working on Oracle Applications is like working in a gold mine: you've got to sift through 20 tons of mud to get 6 ounces of gold. Oracle needs healthy competition, and it could become a monopoly. I'd hate to see it become the the Microsoft of the ERP market.
Orcl - 13.27 down .01 .35
PSFt - 21.78 down
I'm going to make a prediction that because of this the news, Psft's prices are going to go up and Orcl will go down.
PeopleSoft has been fighting this tooth and nail. They actually seem like they want the keep the company. As opposed to just wanting to cash out and saying screw the people.
From this prespective, it seems like a Corporation is stucking UP to the Big Guy, instead of sticking it TO the little guy.
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.
-- Page
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
Yeh, it's kind of like that "my enemy's enemy is my friend" thing. It shouldn't work like that. People should realise that companies like Oracle and Sun are just as evil as Microsoft and would easily stoop to any of the tactics that MS have employed over the years to get ahead.
This isn't about the database market, it's about the ERP market. In that market, some things Oracle has done are cause for concern.
So how many of you read the article just to see Ellison's photo?
I'll be honest. I did.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I work for a major university in California. We're currently implenting Peoplesoft's Student Administration product. (Which is a giant piece of crap BTW, but it's better than other products out there. I wish we had developed our own solution.) If Oracle buys out Peoplesoft, we would have to spend millions to get a new product. (We don't believe Larry when he says that Oracle will continue to support Peoplesoft's products.) If you consider that this software is used by a large number of schools in the US, you can figure out that this will be a HUGE expense (Hundreds of millions of dollars) for all these schools to switch to some new product in a few years. Who will pay this cost? You will. Either in school bonds or higher student fees. Larry ain't gonna pay for it. He's got to pay for his jet fuel.
"You know Myra, some people might think you're cute. But me, I think you're one very large baked potato."
If you were to throw a black cape and a tall hat on him, he could be a circus magician.
No no no. If he was a circus magician, then Oracle's products would be affordable.
He's clearly a Vegas Magician. Same act, but the ticket costs $120 instead of $6.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
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"
This sig intentionally left blank.
Oracle has made it clear their plan is to take Peoplesoft apart and get access to their customer base for Oracle software, phasing out Peoplesoft entirely. They basically want to buy Peoplesoft to eliminate a competitor, leaving the market to Oracle and SAS (the European gorilla in the field). This is not good for Peoplesoft or Peoplesoft customers (and there are a *lot* of them out there) or the market in general. This is only good for Oracle (duh). Many hear complain about Microsoft -- well, do you want another Microsoft in the tech field? Larry Ellison does. The US Government does not. By the way, the Peoplesoft stock price going down instead of jumping to 26 (the Oracle bid) says what the market thinks about the takeover happening.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Oh, god, here we go again.
Yup! The same government that created one of the most famous of all monopolies and enforces it by preventing competition. Not a very useful law.
That makes no sense. The postal service is a government function. That's why congress was given the sole authority to create a postal service in the Constitution. Don't see people raising their own for-profit armies in the US, do you?
You're not laughing.
Yes I am. You amuse me.
If it weren't so common for government schemes to backfire completely, you'd probably think this was funny too.
That's why no government program ever works, and why we live in a squalid, impoverished anarchy.
It gets better. The antitrust laws are used against companies that practice "anticompetitive practices." What counts as "anticompetitive?" Anything aimed at doing better than your competition.
No, by that twisted logic every industry leader in every field would be the target of a federal suit.
Well, here's my last and favorite part. Even assuming that the government is right about everything (I know it's hard...just pretend), the laws are still worthless. The government assumes that if a single company becomes the sole producer in a market, they might jack up the price of their product, hurting the little guy
The laws weren't created in a vacuum--they were enacted BECAUSE of how monopolies were treating consumers.
Now, the main reason Objectivists dislike these laws is because they're a blatant initiation of force.
Objectivists don't like these laws because they're humorless, incredibly naive little people.
If a single producer jacking up his price is really the problem they're trying to solve, and given that they don't care about property rights in the slightest, why not wait until a single producer actually does do that? That's right. If they're going to trample rights, why not just wait until the "bad" thing has actually happened? By their own standards, the antitrust laws are useless.
Because prevention is better than a cure. Corporations aren't people. They shouldn't get the same rights.
In the ERP market, what exactly has Oracle done? SAP dominates that market. The whole thing is a result of PeopleSoft feeding documents to the DoJ to quash the merger. How come the DoJ didn't have a problem with #2 buying the then #3 ERP company about six months ago? It's mostly a pissing match between Larry and Craig, looks like Craig won this round. Oracle should set its sights on BEA and pick off Peoplesoft in a few years.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
For Christ's sake, stop whining about Microsoft. What freakin' Monopoly? I'm here using Mac OS X and the only MS product I use is Office, and that's because I want to. A monopoly is where you don't have another choice, like AT&T used to be. You couldn't switch phone services because there was no one else. There's nothing preventing any company in the world from switching to FreeBSD, Linux or Mac OS X. I've worked at a company that used nothing from MS. We used Linux, Informix, JBoss and Star Office. I wish the courts would stop listening to this nonsense as well. It hurts the whole industry.
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.
/. 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?
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
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.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. -Samuel Johns
It all has to do with campaign contributions. Ellison is a well known donor to democrats so he must be punished by Ashcroft. Just like Martha Stewart. Martha stewart is on trial because she prevented a 60 thousand dollar loss. Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers were never even tried for ripping of tens of billions of dollars from people. Bernie Ebbers alone accounted for nine billion dollars of fraud by worldcom.
Guess who those two contributed most money to?
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.