PeopleSoft Goes To Oracle

codecool writes "It is final. Peoplesoft's Board of directors finally relented and agreed to let Oracle have them for $26.50 per share. Finally, it all comes to an end." Closing date is set for mid-January timeframe.

Comments

Refunds???

[the-matt-mobile]

So, I wonder if PeopleSoft customers can take advantage of the full refunds on their software licenses that were being offered if Oracle succeeded. The article's a little short on details.

Re:Refunds???

[Sein]

Probably not - that was just a "Poison Pill" to make the takeover/buyout completely unprofitable for Oracle and their stockholders.

Poison pills are almost never in the stockholder's best interest - they're mainly used by entrenched boards and management who see their jobs threathened by any takeover, be it "hostile" or "friendly".

Since Oracle launched a lawsuit challenging that particular little gem, I think it's unlikely that anyone can take advantage of it before Oracle gains operational control and cancels the offer.

Re:Refunds???

[Duhavid]

Interesting.

So, poison pills are OK, but labor unions are not.
Guess it depends on whos job is threatened.

Re:Refunds???

[rcs1000]

That's simply not true. I have been intimately involved with the PeopleSoft/Oracle bid, and I can tell you had PeopleSoft not put the customer protection plan in place, it's sales would have collapsed following the bid.

When Oracle first announced it was to acquire PeopleSoft, it said it would close it down. Big corporate customers literally could not buy PeopleSoft software with the sword of "no support" hanging over them. With the product roadmap taken away, they delayed purchasing or went to SAP.

PeopleSoft was left with a dilemma, offer some reassurance to customers who wanted to buy its software or watch sales wither. (In which case, Oracle would probably have withdrawn its bid having seen a competitor's sales collapse.)

We may not like the way PeopleSoft tried to evade Oracle's clutches, but - as far as customer assurance went - it really had no choice, either for its shareholders or its customers.

Disclaimer: up until August '04, I was a stock analyst advising fund managers on the software industry.

Re:Refunds???

[Hangtime]

The refund agreement was not a "Poison Pill." A poison pill simply states that if another acquiring firm purchases more then x percent of a target company's shares then the target company has the right to issue more shares making it prohibitively expensive for the acquiring company to do a takeover without the consent of the targeted firm.

Re:Refunds???

[snorklewacker]

Probably not - that was just a "Poison Pill" to make the takeover/buyout completely unprofitable for Oracle and their stockholders.

The refund was not the poison pill, it was to offer a refund if Peoplesoft stopped being supported within X years (I forgot what X was) after a takeover. Larry Ellison has himself mouthed off how he'd fire everyone at Peoplesoft once he bought them -- he's not so much interested in gaining Peoplesoft, but in destroying them in a personal vendetta. He is machievellian and ruthless person not above simple pettiness.

It's a dark day in Pleasanton, I assure you.

Re:Refunds???

[dillon_rinker]

I don't think that board members and executive management lay awake at night wondering how they will feed their families if they lose their jobs. THAT is the qualitative difference between labor unions and poison pills. One protects people who can't protect themselves; the other protects people who are already well-protected.

Re:Refunds???

[LabRat007]

I have had my own experience with posion pills.

I was an employee of Pharmacia & Upjohn which became Pharmacia and finnally became Pfizer. Our "poison pill" was that if you were laid off (they insisted on using the term "Releasing Your Potential") due to a change in control you would recive a minimum of 6 months of salary in one lump sum. People with the company more then 5 years could get upwards of 3 years worth of pay in some instances. So, we all felt safe but ultimatly I, along with several thousand others took advantage of the "pill". Pfizer took a huge money loss in order to save money later. But, why did'nt they just file a lawsuit to break the pill? Lots of reasons really, PR and company morale to name a few.

The reasons for Oracle's choice are clear but what are the chances or success? What could be the customer relations fallout? Anyone?

Re:Refunds???

[aralin]

When Oracle first announced it was to acquire PeopleSoft, it said it would close it down.

This is one of the widely curculated lies about the whole case. At no time did Oracle say that it will do that. What happened is that right after the bid, so called journalists started to speculate that Oracle would do that and portrayed these speculations as something Oracle said. Right the next week these were refuted by a reiteration from Oracle that the company would continue development of PeopleSoft products and support them for at least a period of 10 years. But the PR damage was already done.

You were pretty bad stock analyst when you still spread around these half truths. I knew there was a reason I generally don't trust "analysts". But there are still people who will mod you informative, even when spreading half truths.

Re:Refunds???

[Herbmaster]

If the story that Oracle had planned to buy PeopleSoft in order to discontinue their products really is a myth, journalists and analysts can't take all the blame. Craig Conway of PeopleSoft also did his part to encourage people to believe that was Ellison's goal.

Re:Refunds???

[aralin]

Of course, that allowed him to justify all the fighting and exactly for this type of lies he has been sacked as CEO of PeopleSoft.

Re:Refunds???

[winwar]

"If the story that Oracle had planned to buy PeopleSoft in order to discontinue their products really is a myth, journalists and analysts can't take all the blame."

Why not? Oh, that's right, journalists and analysts can't be bothered to do RESEARCH and INVESTIGATION.

Let's see, if Oracle didn't say it, but someone from PeopleSoft did (and assuming PeopleSoft didn't want to be bought) what would be the reasonable conclusion? Perhaps someone is lying to scuttle the deal? I mean this has never happened before.....

If an "analyst" or "journalist" can't see this and won't investigate or research this, then they aren't an analyst or journalist. These types might as well be replaced by a website that collects PR announcements-they have the same value.

Re:Refunds???

[Duhavid]

No, he didnt say that.

My own observation. He explained the poison pill as a way for the board members to protect / inflate ( depending on how you look at it ) their value. Unions can be looked at as ways to protect / inflate ( same proviso ) labor's value. Many business types believe that unions are bad, but, at least some seem to think business tactics such as this are OK. I see it as hypocritical.

As to it being modded up, can you explain why you think this? I did not expect it to get modded any particular way ( just like most of my posts... ).

Re:Refunds???

[Duhavid]

Perhaps it would have been better to say "one protects people who have little power to protect themselves".

No, not no skills, not unemployable, not so stupid they cannot aquire new skills. It is harder for those lower in the economic brackets to do these things. Think not? Go get rid of your money and prove me wrong. :-)
Note, I did not say impossible, I said harder.

And just who is better positioned to do these things, the executive suite guys, or those "beneath" them? So why do the top people have this protection and those "below" dont?

No, Oracle does not have an on/off switch, but they do have their hand around the oxygen hose.

Finally it happens

[bblazer]

I think that it is about time this happened. Now both companies can get on about doing business. The match is a good one, and I think that both the customers and the companies will benefit. While I don't blame PS for trying to get the highest price for their stock, I think that they could have saved everyone a lot of time, money and frustration if they would have just put this one to bed a long time ago.

Re:Finally it happens

[mwood]

So now Oracle customers too can look forward to spending five years installing a single release of a single product?

Re:Finally it happens

[d'fim]

"Now both companies can get on about doing business."

No, there will only be one company 'doing business'.

Re:Finally it happens

[CptChipJew]

This isn't the "merger" that Oracle is saying it is. PeopleSoft will be slowly phased out. The only reason they are claiming to still want to improve the application is because PSFT gave their customers 10 year support contracts, and Oracle is legally obliged to maintain that, or refund money. And refunding is something they could not afford, as contracts like Cal State Universities are worth over 300 million.

So now instead of having 2 companies doing business, we have 1, with the other guaranteed to be dead in under 10 years.

(PSFT Employee)

Re:Finally it happens

[ThePhilips]

No, there will only be one company 'doing business'.

I hope it will not become soap opeara like with Digital heritage.

Digital (later DEC) was bought by Compaq to ... seems to me to kill competitor. But stupid customers still used DEC stuff, since it worked and worked well, compared to Compaq stuff.

Then Compaq was bought by HP to ... mating of dinos? Most likely. But still this bone-head DEC customers insisted on using software and hardware which just works, and doesn't enrich market with new services & jobs, like PC Repairman.

So after all this years, HP finally killed off DEC legacy stuff, since it is of no use to them - it just works.

Parallels with current situation are obvious. Oracle tries to sell something what sometimes works with market cost of $10 for $100 so no-one wants to buy it. And instead of building better cheaper product it buys PeopleSoft.

I'd be laughing a lot if in couple of years if M$ or IBM will come up with bid to buy Oracle. It would be fun for sure. Especially for People Soft customers.

many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[theskeptic]

The top 4 out of 5 stories in the wsj.com site an hour back were-
Peoplesoft-Oracle.
JnJ- Guidant
Sprint-Nextel
Honeywell-Novar
London Stock Exchange- Deutsche Boerse

Lots of mergers/acquistions going on. Good for companies who want less competition. Bad for consumers.

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[mordors9]

But you're forgetting, they are doing it for innovation and synergy not for profits and eliminating competition..... silly rabbit.

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[hercubus]

Oracle are doing it because SAP has been eating their lunch globally in the enterprise apps arena, an arena Oracle'd love to play in but have no products (that actually work) now they have control of PeopleSoft's apps, god bless those PeopleSoft customers

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[prgrmr]

What this really points to is that big business believes that the economy is stable enough and has sufficient growth potential to risk spending the big bucks to invest in it.

Whether or not this is good news for the average consumer remains to be seen. The software market is going to continue to get tighter. This is a complete SWAG based on nothing current, but I wouldn't be surprised if Sybase was the next big take-over target.

The cell phone market is going to stay competitive for a while with Sprint both lowering the bar for consumers and tossing the gauntlet at the competition with flat-fee overages. By this time next year we may be looking at unlimited, non-peak hour cell service for a flat rate and peak-hour overages for a flat rate from all cell providers

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[Zog The Undeniable]

And look at HP-Compaq or AOL-Time Warner for what happens

/adopts stentorian Discovery Channel announcer's voice

When Good Mergers Go Bad.

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[superpulpsicle]

Oh man, and I thought management was doing it just to pocket some a couple million dollars while firing a thousand employees. Wow, now I know they are doing it for innovation and synergy. Thanks for the clear up.

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[avronius]

Sybase appears to be getting 'squeezed' out of datacentres, and their 'free' release doesn't appear to have made the impact that they were expecting, either...

It may well be the proverbial 'hot potato' in the database game. There are a small handful of contenders in the pay-for space, and a small handful in the free-to-good-home space.

I hope that Sybase finds it's niche again, but it's a fickle market. Who knows, if enough corporations have leadership changes next year, Sybase may regain leverage in the market.

Re:many mergers/acquistions in the news today

[CaptainZapp]

Lots of mergers/acquistions going on. Good for companies who want less competition. Bad for consumers.

I agree that it's bad for consumers. If it's good for the companies has yet to be seen.

Business Plan

[rf0]

Buy PeopleSoft to get a new customer base. Raise prices on PeopleSoft software to increase revenue and recover cost. Nice money if you can get it

Rus

This is going to be painful

[Amiga Trombone]

My shop is running a massive PeopleSoft implementation. Now what? Since Oracle wants to discontinue the line I wonder how much longer they'll be offering support for it. I also have to wonder what our alternatives are going to be to replace it.

This is going to suck big time.

Re:This is going to be painful

[A.Chwunbee]

"My shop is running a massive PeopleSoft implementation. [snip] I also have to wonder what our alternatives are going to be to replace it."

Do not be the clever dickie! There are many many jolly fine alternatives!

Re:This is going to be painful

[webmosher]

Don't worry too much. Oracle must leech from your company as many dollars as possible while also ensuring you become addicted to their products. I'm sure Oracle will do their best to ensure PeopleSoft 9 is a high performance, exhaustively featured and difficult to administer product as anything else they have developed. Heck, its their business model: expensive products, expensive licensing, expensive support.

However, while Oracle may be very pricy, it does what it does very well. You might argue that you're paying alot more than you get, but who's to say what the real price of quality, well supported products is in this day-and-age. I can remember when MicroSoft user support was still actually free. Now, that same level of support is a premium service. Many companies still seem to "put up" with the products that they deliver.

When Oracle says they're planning to give PS clients A-one support. I believe them. PeopleSoft as a product will not go away entirely. Expect PS 10 to be fully integrated with the Oracle application line (maybe around Oracle 12). Of course, by then you'll be paying fully exhorbitant Oracle licensing fees, not intermediate ones.

Re:This is going to be painful

[Pfhreakaz0id]

.... don't foget expensive "consulting" to actually get the stuff working as part of there revenue stream. Of course, they have all that excellent documentation, like a web site that looks like ass and forums that are crashed about 30% of the time. This is from a company who's couldn't be bothered to generate a javaDoc for a java API they had to one of there products-- Oracle Workflow -- I just checked and it still isn't there. Of course they were "working on that" 18 months ago when I asked.

Re:This is going to be painful

[saitoh]

First off, that was Oracles plan in the beginning, but as of this afternoon, Oracle has publically stated that it will be continuing support, and even furthering development on PeopleSoft's products.

I'm in the same boat.

The story I'm referencing is as follows (the comment comes about half way down the article, starting with "In its statement Oracle moved":
Yahoo News

Employees?

[sangudu]

What will happen to the existing employees? Will Oracle retain them or not? I hope it retains them.. PeopleSoft should see to it that its employees are not fired.. What is the usual way in which these things go? Any previous cases any one?

Re:Employees?

[lucabrasi999]

What will happen to the existing employees? Will Oracle retain them or not?

This is just a guess on my part, but my gut feeling is that if you are a developer or software engineer working for PeopleSoft, you will be retained. If you are a PeopleSoft salesperson or a help desk employee, you better start looking for work.

Again, I am just guessing, since I am not an employee of either Oracle or PeopleSoft. I am basing my guess on what usually happens when IT companies merge. The developers and engineers are retained, the support personnel are laid off.

Re:Employees?

[stecoop]

if you are a developer or software engineer working for PeopleSoft, you will be retained. If you are a PeopleSoft salesperson or a help desk employee, you better start looking for work.

You forgot the big one - If you're a Board of Director, you better start looking for work. You don't think the Oracle will retain any Directors or VPS after dragging their feet so much making it being so difficult in merging.

Re:Employees?

[OP_Boot]

I've seen four or five buyouts of A Software Company by ANOther Software Company from the inside, and in none of them have the support staff been laid off.

Re:Employees?

[papasui]

If you think of the chain of command as a pyramid the top of it being the CEO and the bottom base being the support staff/CSRS/etc, then you see that without them the entire pyramid would tumble. What typically happens with mergers and just restructuring in general is mid to upper management is the ones in jeopardy of loosing their jobs. Occasionally a few other oddball positions are eliminated, but if you have spent 2 years supporting a product (ala Peoplesoft) it doesn't make sense to eliminate those people because you'd then need to rehire someone to do that same job.

Re:Employees?

[lucabrasi999]

and in none of them have the support staff been laid off.

Really? Then what's the point of the merger?

Note that by "support staff", I am not referring to software developers/engineers. Those positions will probably be retained, since Oracle will need their expertise to provide technical support to existing PeopleSoft customers. By Support Staff, I am referring to Administrative Assistants, Salespeople, Help Desk (Level 1) and maybe even some middle managers (as another poster pointed out).

PeopleSoft probably uses it's own software to run it's HR, Payroll, Benefits, Purchasing and Accounting functions. Until Oracle can migrate those functions into it's software, Oracle may have to keep some of those Peoplesoft personnel. Once they migrate all of those functions to Oracle applications, they can start pink-slipping the people in those departments (HR, accounting and purchasing).

Re:Employees?

[Red Storm]

I have a freind who used to work at Oracle until they moved their data center folks to Austin. He said that Larry made it very publicly known that he wanted to take over People Soft so he could fire everyone. If this is true there are soon to be several empty buildings and several thousand people without jobs in the Pleasanton area. This does not bode well for the early signs of an economic upswing I've been seeing in this area.

Re:Employees?

[OP_Boot]

By support, I meant "customer support".

Tech support - the guys at the end of the phone.

Apologies for the possibly misleading term.

What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[lucabrasi999]

I checked Oracle's web site. It appears that existing PeopleSoft customers have some good news out of this. After having invested millions of dollars on PeopleSoft, they won't have to immediately migrate to another ERP system:

We intend to enhance PeopleSoft 8 and develop a PeopleSoft 9 and enhance a JD Edwards 5 and develop a JD Edwards 6. We intend to immediately extend and improve support for existing JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers worldwide.

Of course, whether or not PeopleSoft version 9 is an improvement over PeopleSoft version 8 depends on how much you love your existing ERP system. Of course, I don't see anything on whether or not the new PeopleSoft version 9 will run on DB2 or SQL Server.

Re:What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[jacobcaz]

• We intend to enhance PeopleSoft 8 and develop a PeopleSoft 9 and enhance a JD Edwards 5 and develop a JD Edwards 6. We intend to immediately extend and improve support for existing JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers worldwide.

The question is; will Oracle keep a lot of the PeopleSoft support staff and development staff or will they cut them loose? We've had problems in the past finding good GSC analysts for tech cases and when we find a tech who really knows the system we keep going back to them.

Also, some of the code I've seen come out of PeopleSoft is convulted and a miracle it works at all. If they cut a large portion of the development staff how long will it take Oracle to get their developers up to speed on the mess of PeopleCode, App Engine code and COBOL that makes PeopleSoft run?

Re:What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[bhima]

Amazing isn't it! My sister has made a small fortune being good with ugly, convulted COBOL

Re:What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[lucabrasi999]

we've had problems in the past finding good GSC analysts for tech cases

You found a good GSC analyst? Wow, can I get their e-mail address? I haven't found a good one yet.

If they cut a large portion of the development staff how long will it take Oracle to get their developers up to speed on the mess of PeopleCode, App Engine code and COBOL that makes PeopleSoft run?

Not to make you feel worse, but from what I have heard, Oracle Applications do not have a great reputation. Rumor has it that they are even buggier than PeopleSoft's applications.

I doubt Larry Ellison will lay off the development staff. If anything, he will probably offer all of PeopleSoft developers pay raises. He will need those developers in order to continue to support the existing applications. Salespeople and support staff, on the other hand, are probably due for layoffs.

Re:What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[lucabrasi999]

Uh, moderators, why am I being moderated as "flamebait"? I was commenting on MY OWN COMMENT! I replied to myself.

Re:What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[Ford Prefect]

Uh, moderators, why am I being moderated as "flamebait"? I was commenting on MY OWN COMMENT! I replied to myself.

Look, if you're going to pick fights with yourself, please take it outside! :-)

Re:What about existing PeopleSoft customers?

[bungo]

PeopleSoft, they won't have to immediately migrate to another ERP system:

My guess is that Oracle will do to PeopleSoft the same thing they did (are doing) to RDB.

For those who are too young to remember, once upon a time, there was a company known as DEC, and they had a database which ran on their VAX hardware called RDB, and it was way ahead of everyone esle in terms of being a multi-dimensional database - much the same way their clustering technology was so advanced that others are only now catching up.

Oracle bought RDB from DEC, and slowly, over the last 10 years, took all of the good features and technology and added it to their rdbms. Now with Oracle 10G, there's hardly any reason why anyone but a old-time hard core VAX-running customer would ever consider RDB.

The RDB product line isn't dead, but with all of the features now available elsewhere, it might as well be.

Oracle will probably get everyone to migrate over a 10-15 year period before they kill PeopleSoft.

Competition

[millahtime]

Oracle may be a giant but competition does many things. Keeps prices down, drives innovation to be better than the alternative, etc. With peoplesoft not the competition, who will be Oracles competition? If there is no other big dog out there then the customer will loose.

Without competition, then there is no reason to get better and what sets the price.

Re:Competition

[lucabrasi999]

who will be Oracles competition?

SAP is the major competition in the ERP market. If I remember correctly, SAP has a larger customer base than Oracle and PeopleSoft combined.

Re:Competition

[jawtheshark]

Aren't most SAP installations based on Oracle databases? I thought they were, the big ones I saw were, or perhaps I'm mixing up different products.

Re:Competition

[lucabrasi999]

I'm mixing up different products.

You are. Oracle doesn't just make database software. Peoplesoft, SAP and Oracle make applications that run the back-office of many corporations (HR, Payroll, Accouting, Purchasing, etc.) This merger between Oracle and PeopleSoft impacts that applications. There are PeopleSoft applications that run on DB2, Oracle, Sybase and SQL Server. My guess is that at some point, Oracle will probably try to migrate all of the DB2, Sybase and SQL server customers to Oracle databases.

Re:Competition

[mahju]

A bit of shameless self-referencing here. I commented on the PS / JDE on slash here some time back... so here it is again;

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.


Now Oracle has bought PS, its going to be huge in the HR space, and a really compete with SAP. Oracle say in its latest release on its website that it will continue the PS line for sometime, and release version 9. I personally thinkit will go the way of Vantive and JDE. You'll see PS survive for under a year, then the labels and logos will change and nothing else, and finally in about 2-3 years time it will be ported to Oracle technology, and be no more.

One final prediction. When the port to Oracle apps technology occurs, you will be locked into using an Oracle database (unlike PS which sat on a range of DBs).

Re:Competition

[hercubus]

for enterprise apps, SAP is bigger than PeopleSoft in enterprise apps, Oracle a distant, distant third for the DB side, Oracle has plenty of competition, from mySQL to Microsoft SQL server to IBM's DB2 all of which doesn't have any effect on Oracle's prices

Re:Competition

[Ranger96]

Oracle may try, and may succeed in a few cases, but I doubt there will be huge numbers of existing Peoplesoft customers changing their underlying databases. Most large companies tend to standardize on a single enterprise DB platform (Oracle, DB2, etc.) and expect all of their applications to use it. Otherwise, the cost of DBA operations is just way too high. It's unlikely Oracle could convince a company to switch their PeopleSoft software from DB2 to Oracle DB, if all of their other applications run on DB2.

Re:Competition

[Gulik]

It's unlikely Oracle could convince a company to switch their PeopleSoft software from DB2 to Oracle DB, if all of their other applications run on DB2.

That depends on how heavily the company is into PeopleSoft. If they are, for example, a school, and have their payroll, student information system, financial resource system, and grants package manager all on PeopleSoft, and PeopleSoft says that the next revision is only going to support Oracle, there's going to be a strong tendency to migrate (or add an Oracle box), even if there are a lot of other packages running on DB2. PeopleSoft can be a huge part of a company's administrative system.

Re:Competition

[meatball_mulligan]

"... I doubt there will be huge numbers of existing Peoplesoft customers changing their underlying databases ..."

Sadly, they won't have a choice. Larry has made it perfectly clear that he wanted to buy Peoplesoft in order to kill off their products and migrate their user base to Oracle solutions (which IMHO are quite inferior).

For those of us with large Peoplesoft installations supported by DB2 on the mainframe, this is going to be an expensive and difficult transition.

m.m.

Re:Competition

[AstroDrabb]

I don't know if this will happen, or at least hope not. I am a senior programmer for fortune 500 and we recently did a HUGE PeopleSoft HR system and PeopleSoft Portal. It took a _very_ long time, thousands of man-hours and cost tens of millions.

We already use Oracle for all our critical corporate systems on the DB side, including HR and Portal. So Oracle changing PeopleSoft to require an Oracle DB is not a big deal to us.

However, we did evaluate Oracles offerings for HR and Portal. Their HR system didn't support what we needed so we went with PS HR. And since we went with PS HR, we went with PS Portal since the two integrate.

The only way I see customers that are not using an Oracle DB for their PS systems switching would be if Oracle sent consultants to do the conversions at not cost. Of course Oracle will still get paid the big license fees and support contracts!

Re:Competition

[cayenne8]

"For those of us with large Peoplesoft installations supported by DB2 on the mainframe, this is going to be an expensive and difficult transition."

Yup...like the US/DoD investments in PS on DB2....I think the DIMHRS project, one of the largest computer projects in the world is going this route. Wonder what's going to happen to that....?

Re:Competition

[grassy_knoll]

My guess is that at some point, Oracle will probably try to migrate all of the DB2, Sybase and SQL server customers to Oracle databases.

That's one thought. Another thought is Oracle might try to migrate PeopleSoft customers to their Oracle Applications, in addition to migrating them to the Oracle Database.

From what I've seen of Oracle Applications, this would be a disaster. We attempted to migrate to Oracle Applications ( ver. 11.5.9 ) and ended up regressing to exisiting systems.

PeopleSoft might not be best of breed, but they do seem more functional than Oracle Applications.

Re:Total value...

[BristolCream]

Of course they don't; they hope to make several thousand out of 5% of the total people on earth and several hundred thousand out of .2$ of the total people on earth.

incorrect economic analysis.

[Leonig Mig]

if a merger is vertical it tends to lower costs and is thus good for the consumer. arguably oracle/peoplesoft is vertical.

you are thinking of horizontal mergers. with the exception of JnJ- Guidant, and Sprint-Nextel (which i know little about), none of those listed are horizontal.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Please define vertical and horizontal in terms of businesses and mergers.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Anonymous Custard]

Vertical: a bigger company buys a smaller one, and the smaller one essentially becomes a division of the larger one. Like when Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive unit.

Horizontal: Two large companies that already do similar things merge. Such as the Compaq/HP merger.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[mforbes]

A horizontal merger is one in which both companies compete for the same market. For instance, if MS were to buy out Oracle's database platform and services, that would be a horizontal merger, since MS already has SQL Server.

A vertical merger is one in which, for instance, one company uses a product of the other company in order to build and sell their own product. An example of this would be if a cellular service provider were to buy a cell phone manufacturer. (I don't know of any real-world instances of this; it's only a theoretical example.)

Hope that helps :)

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Rasta Prefect]

arguably oracle/peoplesoft is vertical.

Oracle and Peoplesoft compete directly to provide ERP systems. Are in fact numbers 2 and 3 in this space. How is this arguably vertical?

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Angostura]

Thus the weakness of the original poster's argument is demonstrated. Microsoft buying an application company is certainly vertical, and certainly unlikely to be particularly good for consumers.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[nelsonal]

Vertical traditionally implies that a company is buying a supplier or customer. Think Dell/Intel. Horizontal means buying a direct competitor like HP/Compaq. Vertical mergers are intended to provide significant streamlining of an entire supply chain, horizontal mergers are intended to reduce overhead costs (removal of one CEO, many accountants managers and such) while not cutting output. Most mergers are a mix of the two as most companies are big enough to compete with many of their suppliers. The final type of merger that isn't used much anymore is a diversification/conglomeration merger where a company buys an unrelated business like MS buying an auto company or something. These can be useful for diversification (look at AOL whose shareholders got half of a real media company) but are rarely good for owners of either company.
Software is a bit tricky but I'd call this more of a horizontal merger a true vertical merger in software would be something like EA buying that development tools company (was it Radware?) or something similar.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Anonymous Coward]

The most often cited real-world example I can think of is the film industry, in its early years. Vertical integration of the industry resulted in the same company owning the film studios, the distribution channels, and the theaters themselves. There was a time when you could only see Paramount movies at Paramount theaters or Universal movies at Universal theaters as a result of this, until the government got involved after some lawsuits. NOT always better for the consumer.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Epistax]

Both are bad for consumers, except when the industry is in so much trouble it will otherwise no longer exist. The problem with vertical monopolies is that the competition cannot compete on any level and is forced to quit. For instance if company A makes a product which company B, C and D uses, and either B, C or D buys A, the other two companies will usually die. On the other hand if any of B, C and D buys another, the other one will usually die, except the have a bit more of a fighting chance. To continue to use this example of B buys C, then BC can now buy the products from A cheaper than D can, so BC can charge less for its products or put more into research to end D.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[Alarion]

Because PS products can utilise Oracle products (database). This is why it is arguably vertical.

I look at it as a bother veritcal and horizontal.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[burns210]

Dell buying the Chinese factories that build their computers.

Re:incorrect economic analysis.

[jwin1020]

Oracle/PeopleSoft is not a vertical merger. Oracle is the number three supplier of ERP software with their E-Business Suite. PeopleSoft is the number two supplier of ERP software. This would only be a vertical integration if Oracle were not already a major player in the ERP market.

Re:Total value...

[jchawk]

Considering that Oracle made 10.30B last year alone, I think this is probably a wise investment for them. PeopleSoft's software fits nicely within the framework that Oracle is already able to build and offer to it's customers. This move will surely broaden the markets with which Oracle can move into and deploy their products...

Re:Total value...

[theskeptic]

When companies buy other companies for 30-40 Billion $, you think they make 5 $ out of every human being? That's a stupid argument.
Its like saying IBM earned 8.7 Billion $ last year. Therefore it earned 1.45 $ from every human being.
You have stated living being. Which also includes mammals, insects..

Peoplesoft is worth so much(atleast to Oracle) is because of the customers Peoplesoft has. It takes time to build a business and earn profits from it.
When you take a competitor off the market and acquire most of its customer base, then you have to pay accordingly.

Make that 5 out of 5

[woodsrunner]

And don't forget the most important one: Molson's and Coor's .... this is far scarrier than Peoplesoft and Oracle!!!!

Re:Make that 5 out of 5

[Fallen_Knight]

yea, thank god theres always good local beers in case the merger screws up canadian.

Re:Make that 5 out of 5

[rainman_bc]

Why is that scarier? One of two things can happen:

a) American Beer stops tasting like donkey piss.
or
b) Canadian Beer starts tasting like donkey piss.

Given that Labatts is still Canadian, and makes a pretty good beer, I'd wager that a is more likely than b, however anything's possible I suppose.

Re:Make that 5 out of 5

[snorklewacker]

Coors owns a lot of microbrews, and they don't screw around with their brewing, it's strictly business. Nothing's going to happen to your precious Canadian swill, which I might add is only marginally better than American swill. Go try a beer that doesn't come out of a 20,000-gallon vat sometime.

Indeed...

[cybrthng]

Infact they make much more then that. ERP is lucrative business - believe me. I've been working on these systems for 6+ years now.

When i worked for Oracle - even the most basic project was a 2-5 million dollar project and that was before montly/yearly support plans and extended consulting fees.

There is money to be made, but also technology to be learned from. Peoplesoft has its HR roots and JD Edwards has its MRP/Manufacturing roots that oracle could learn tons from.

Good economic news...

[arashiakari]

Consolidation proceeds growth. There are mergers all over the place, not just high tech. Large cap stocks are going to have a good year in '05, and corporate spending is going to increase tangibly, especially on technology. Large caps are big stable companies that spend lots of money and hire lots of people.

Re:Good economic news...

[rahlquist]

Consolidation proceeds growth.

Consolidation of this type only leads to growth of the unenployment line.

What about the poison pill?

[TheRealFixer]

Since Oracle's stated goal was to simply buy PeopleSoft to destroy their product line (something which I still can't believe the judge is letting them get away with), wasn't there a poison pill that if Oracle discontinued their product they'd be liable to refund every customer in full? What happened to that?

Re:What about the poison pill?

[mclearn]

As long as the board agrees to the merger, the PP (well, actually, this is the CAP part of the PP agreement. The PP itself was a stock flood, as is per normal of poison pills) is null and void. The PP was designed to halt a *hostile* takeover attempt. This is no longer hostile. Also, Ellison has stated that they will continue to offer excellent (yeah, yeah, it's subjective) support to PSFT customers for the next 10 years or so.

Re:What about the poison pill?

[pcardno]

My company uses Peoplesoft a hell of a lot for accounts, HR and so on. A refund would be utterly useless, as the cost of the software itself is nothing compared to the cost associated with implementing and integrating a brand new general ledger, HR system and so on..

open source

[jeif1k]

After you have gone through a few of those, you'll come to realize the value of open source. People didn't use to think this was possible for OS'es or GUIs, but it turned out it was. They said open source wasn't reliable enough or secure enough or whatever, but they were wrong. And, yes, it is possible for the kinds of products PeopleSoft used to make as well.

Maybe your company and a bunch of other companies should get together and start working on an open source version of PeopleSoft's software. The good thing is that you don't have any legacy headaches and that you have great tools to work with.

Re:open source

[Wudbaer]

Now show me the great Open Source product being able to replace SAP, PeopleSoft and the like and everything will be jolly good.

Oh, I forgot, I'm supposed to write it myself. My stupid.

Re:open source

[gregmac]

Now show me the great Open Source product being able to replace SAP, PeopleSoft and the like and everything will be jolly good.

Oh, I forgot, I'm supposed to write it myself. My stupid.

Attitudes like this are exactly why no open source version exists. There is quite a bit of value in writing an open source solution, espessially if your primary business is not software development. Hiring a couple of in-house programmers for a year to do development is probably not much more expensive (perhaps even cheaper) than paying the proprietary software to begin with, espessailly once you get customizations done.

There's likely enough demand (espessially now that PeopleSoft is going to disappear) that provided your developers know how to do OS (as in, provide all the necessary tools - cvs, mailing lists, etc) and are properly organized (proper roadmap, enough documentation along the way), other companies and/or individuals will likely take an interest and help out with development.

The benefits? You get the software you want exactly, customized to your business. You get enhancements as other companies customize it to their needs and add new features, and once you're done writing it, you don't even really need to continue development if you don't want to, as hopefully there's a community working on it. Likely the developers will leave (or ge laid off..) and go start their own company doing development on the software for other companies. If you ever need to hire developers, there's a pool of them to choose from that are already familliar with the code. The key thing is you never have to be worried about what happens to the company behind the software, because there isn't one.

Of course, you may not want to venture into the seedy world of open source development where rivals can look at the code you're using and totally undermine your business pratices (I hope you can detect the sarcasm). Perhaps the best thing to do would be to go pay another huge sum of money to Oracle, spend a year re-implementing your setup, and perhaps go through this mess again in a few years when Oracle decides to discontinue their software, gets bought out by a competitor, changes their licensing scheme, take the product in a new direction, gets crushed by Microsoft, goes bankrupt, gets sued for stealing code....

Re:open source

[EastCoastSurfer]

where rivals can look at the code you're using and totally undermine your business pratices

There is some truth to this statement though. If company A hires me to write some software for them that gives them a competitive advantage why would they want to release it as open source? Company A footed the bill for development, so they reap the rewards. What is the arugment for releasing the software as open source so that competitors B, C, etc... get to use the software for free?

Re:open source

[mikrorechner]

People didn't use to think this was possible for OS'es or GUIs, but it turned out it was. They said open source wasn't reliable enough or secure enough or whatever, but they were wrong.

I think there is a difference between those two and the kind of software that Oracle, Peoplesoft etc. sell. The open source OSes, like Linux and the BSDs, and the open source desktop environments, like Gnome and KDE (which I assume you meant by "GUIs"), where made by programmers for their own use. People always try to improve those for their own good, because they use them themselves every day.

How many programmers out there will say "Huh, I don't like this PeopleSpft stuff, I will write my own ERP software!"?

None, I believe.

Re:open source

[hercubus]

i cannot imagine anyone doing enterprise apps for any reason other than profit

this is pure business muck, no fun or glory to be had whatsoever - how many widgets sold, what price, when, to whom, yadda yadda

this is the coding equivalent of changing other people's kids' poopy diapers all day. no fun, no ego boost, just oceans of baby dung

the only way anyone is going to work on enterprise apps is for profit, this is an OSS-proof business

Re:open source

[radarsat1]

that, i believe, would be the part of the post you didn't quote.

Re:open source

[EastCoastSurfer]

Since company A developed the code, they already own the source. This allows them to just hire developers to do work on it anytime they want. Releasing it as open source allows company As competitors to use the code (which destroys it's competitive advantage) and they only gain IF competitors add features that also end up being useful to company A. It seems like a big gamble for company A to release the software as open source where they give up a competitive advantage for a hope that they get some additional features in return.

Re:open source

[durdur]

Large corporate applications like PeopleSoft are complex - it is not something a couple of guys can knock out in a year. Some apps are tightly tailored to particular industries, but even so, purchasers need a lot of customization to make the software work for them.
So it's not a "write it once, use everywhere" piece of software like the Linux kernel. Plus, a lot of companies who buy this stuff are not software experts - that's not what their business does. So writing their own solution is not an attractive option. They want to sell more widgets, which is what they know about, not set up a software development shop and compete with the likes of Oracle and PeopleSoft.

Re:open source

[hanssprudel]

. If company A hires me to write some software for them that gives them a competitive advantage why would they want to release it as open source? Company A footed the bill for development, so they reap the rewards. What is the arugment for releasing the software as open source so that competitors B, C, etc... get to use the software for free?

The point is that you are in the business of maximizing the returns for your stockholders, not trying to punish the stockholders of your competitors. If you can increase the profitability of the entire sector by 20%, you have done a better job then if you increase your market share by 10%.

So yes, your competitors get reap the rewards of your work, but because you released it under the GPL, you will get paid back by reaping the rewards of their additions, modifications, and bugfixes. As has been seen by many companies, the advantage of having the in-house knowledge and the software developed around your needs, more than compensates you for the extra expense of having the started it.

That everybody else benefits as well does not dilute your benefit. Stockholders are not paid in percentage points!

Re:open source

[jacobcaz]

• Hiring a couple of in-house programmers for a year to do development is probably not much more expensive (perhaps even cheaper) than paying the proprietary software to begin with, espessailly once you get customizations done.

Hiring a couple of in-house programmers for a year will get you jack squat progress towards a full-blown home-rolled ERP system.

I will wager you could pull off something like a inventory management package or order management interface that would work in a small company, but there is no way a "couple of in-house programmers" could produce anything close to an Oracle/PeopleSoft/Great Plains/SAP type system.

The system flexability, business knowledge requirements, legal issues, tax issues, GAAP requirements, Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, etc. would overwhelm any small team. Couple that with the need for on-going support and upgrades, regulatory updated (taxes, SoX, etc.) and you've got a team of hundreds working on the project.

"But it's open-source!" you cry, "We'll give it to the community and let them extend and build it!" Without a in-stone development plan you would just have a ton of people all working on various bits and it would be difficult if not impossible because you would have a hard time determining where someone would fit into the project based on their desire to contribute and their skills/background.

If you could manage to pull all this off - you would have to offer some type of 24x7 support if you wanted anyone else to use your software. No company that would need an ERP solution would touch one without serious support backing it up. So you setup a division to charge for and provide 24x7 technical support (and don't forget you'll need to provide functional support too).

Guess what; you just re-built an SAP or a PeopleSoft.

Re:open source

[IdleTime]

Writing an OS is easy, writing Oracle Apps, SAP or Peoplesoft is much more complicated. Why? Simply because it has to be adapted to local laws in all countries it will be sold in, differences in accounting practices etc. You need patches for every country and every minor change in laws. You need support 24/7 since it is a vital product for most companies, withouit it running, you have no idea who owes you money and vice versa etc.

Re:open source

[maxume]

This is a great example of where open source doesn't work. There is of course lots of software that is neccasary but gives no competitive advantage, the perfect case for open source...

Re:open source

[drew]

So yes, your competitors get reap the rewards of your work, but because you released it under the GPL, you will get paid back by reaping the rewards of their additions, modifications, and bugfixes.

This is not necessarily true- if they never distribute the software, they are under no obligations to share any changes that they made to the software. You can modify and use GPL'd software to your hearts content without sharing a thing. The only time you are obligated to make any changes you have made to the code available to someone else is if you give them a copy of the software.

Re:open source

[elrusoloco]

Another reason why people buy commercial software - it's already written. Yes, Oracle, PS, and SAP would take some time to implement, but it's possible to buy consulting services to make that process go a lot faster and smoother. I work for a software company - we write and sell software. I am NEVER worried about losing business to open source - the stuff we write has been battle-tested by thousands of customers. The CIO at any company evaluating software solutions will be hard-pressed to recommend to his CFO that they spend the money allocated in the budget to software purchases on develoment instead. People just don't have that kind of time on their hands.

Re:open source

[cayenne8]

Either way, wouldn't hurt to have PeopleSoft re-done by someone. If I reacall....the basics of the the thing are still written in freakin' Cobol....

And eveything new is just kludged on top of this...granted, has been a few years since I worked with PS...(approx. 3+)...but, that was the case then...

Re:open source

[bungo]

Hiring a couple of in-house programmers for a year will get you jack squat progress towards a full-blown home-rolled ERP system.

If I had mod points, I'd give you a +1 insightful.

As for an example, where I'm currently working uses Oracle's E-Business suit. There are 4 full-time DBA's, and about 20 full-time developers.

What do these people do? Create new wizz-bang system? No. Everyone is either involved in keeping things running, or making minor modifications or additions to the existing system. (Some of us have been here for more than 7 years, just keeping things ticking over.)

If we wanted to produce even a small fraction of Oracle's E-Business suit, we'd need 100 times more people.

Oracle's E-Business suit is vast, and should not be under estimated.

Re:open source

[jeif1k]

i cannot imagine anyone doing enterprise apps for any reason other than profit

Neither can I. But companies like Oracle or PeopleSoft are eating into the profits of small companies that can barely afford them and that don't need something as big anyway.

So, small companies sooner or later will ask their own, paid employees to develop bits and pieces of such software. It won't be very scalable or featureful, but it will be good enough for many companies with simple needs. Then, they'll recognize that it will improve more if they release it OSS, and other people will start contributing. After a little while, you have a fairly featureful FOSS application.

That's how open source usuall starts.

Re:open source

[jeif1k]

Oh, I forgot, I'm supposed to write it myself. My stupid.

First of all, SAP is mostly a marketing construct. If you look at their higher education product, for example, three out of the five modules already have open source implementations.

Second, SAP has a bunch of big problems: they are stuck with cumbersome technology for various reasons and their customers have big scalability demands. A low-end FOSS implementation can be kept much simpler and be based on platforms that make implementations much easier.

Give it a little more time and SAP and PeopleSoft will be replaceable by open source components for most customers.

Re:open source

[boskone]

if they don't need oracle/sap/peoplesoft (largely regarded as tier 1) level functionality, then most organizations go to a tier 2 player like accpacc, great plains, peachtree, etc)

Re:open source

[hanssprudel]

This is not necessarily true- if they never distribute the software, they are under no obligations to share any changes that they made to the software. You can modify and use GPL'd software to your hearts content without sharing a thing. The only time you are obligated to make any changes you have made to the code available to someone else is if you give them a copy of the software.

Except that this argument doesn't hold because:

a) They end up with a version that cannot be distributed. This may work fine for a while, but if you actually use a piece of software within a company you will wish to give it to consultants, freelancers, etc.

b) If you do this, your changes will not make it back to the public tree. So you will need to put in labor to port your changes into every new version, or backport the bug fixes from the public tree to your own. Practice has shown us that this is simply not worth it.

Re:open source

[chris_mahan]

There is no footing the bill. They are getting state-of-the-art, robust software for free. Let's say they have saved $500,000 and $100,000 a year forever.

Now, they pay El Gooroo $80,000 a year to extra-super-duper customize their app, and release El's code back to the community as part of the "Evil viral" GPL license.

At the end of five years, they have a NET profit over a closed source solution, better software, and in-house expertise.

For businesses, this makes excellent sense.

Re:open source

[Jherek Carnelian]

Guess what; you just re-built an SAP or a PeopleSoft.

With one key difference -

If this new hypothetical company goes belly-up, they don't take the software with them.

If they get bought out and the shut down, they don't take the software with them.

If their top talent starts feeling that corporate management is taking development in the wrong direction - they can quit and start their own company to go in the right direction.

etc

Making money by selling support services is the most obvious and long-standing open-source business strategy in existence.

Re:open source

[jacobcaz]

• With one key difference - If this new hypothetical company goes belly-up, they don't take the software with them.

  If they get bought out and the shut down, they don't take the software with them.

  If their top talent starts feeling that corporate management is taking development in the wrong direction - they can quit and start their own company to go in the right direction.

Well, sorta... It's possible a few interprising folks could take the software from the defunct "company" and start over. It's possible that the software would exist without "the company" around to support it. It's possible talent would leave and do their own thing.

But you still pretty much described PeopleSoft, almost. The top talent in PeopleSoft doesn't stay around for long. The really good consultants I've met are independant. They rely on their skills and reputation to get work. They may work for PeopleSoft for a few years to build those skills and contacts, but unless they get into executive management they pretty much all leave for greener consulting pastures.

The thing is, as soon as the back-end support is gone the customer will flee. A small shop cannot keep a system like PeopleSoft or Oracle up and running on just a few people. We are a 60 employee company with 1 full time PeopleSoft person (me) and 2 other techs who split their time between PeopleSoft and systems and we're woefully understaffed. If the support structure (such as it is) went away, even if it were just for a few weeks while those who wanted to rebuild the defunct "company" got back on their feet we would be in a world of hurt.

A bigger company wouldn't even play that game, they would be on to the next package so fast your head would spin. You have to have that support structure to be successful. A small band of rogue employees would be able to start a successful consulting company, but only if the mother company were there to provide that re-assuing umbrella of overall support that customers want.

A Tier 1 ERP package is complex. I mean really, fantastically, mind-bogglingly complex. Building an operating system is peanuts compared to building an ERP package, and building a working, functional OS is really...damn...impressive.

A handful of employees and their friend "Earl" are not going to be able to just open an office and seriously compete with any Tier 1 (or even Tier 2) package out there. They don't have the support structure to back them up.

If it were announced that support for PeopleSoft were ending tomorrow, but we could keep using the software as long as we like (afterall we have full access to the code, all customers do) we would only use PeopleSoft for as long as it took us to research and move to another solution.

It would be far, far to expensive to try to maintain it ourselves. I would argue that for any company where building an ERP package wasn't their core comptenency it would be far to expensive to maintain alone. That includes the big boys, Ford, WalMart, GM, etc.

Do you know how many code lines are out there just for PeopleSoft? Do you know how many patches come out each week? It makes patching Microsoft look like a freaking day at the beach. It's all we can do to keep on top of the critical patches and fixes, let alone the ones that would be nice to get into place. And we're not unique. Everyone who uses PeopleSoft I've ever spoken with has expressed similar concerns of frustrations.

I still maintain that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't do a Tier 1 FOSS ERP package and not end up creating another SAP, Oracle or PeopleSoft.

Re:open source

[Wudbaer]

As already said elsewhere in this thread one thing most people IMO completely underestimate when it comes to ERP and other financial packages is the shitload of regulatory requirements and tiny but vital details that MUST be in your package. It is not an option, it's a must have.

Taxes (all kinds of), good bookkeeping practice, all of that most of the time wildly different from country to country, and if certain bits are missing every auditor will just shake his head and you will have a big audit on your hands.

We are using a comparatively simple ERP package compared to SAP, PeopleSoft and the likes, but just keeping current with the patches and upgrades for ever changing tax and other regulations makes me want to break down and cry. And I am not even writing that stuff but just maintaining it.

Also IMO you either have to be an accountant or at least have to have a good understanding of accounting or you just will not get it right.

Re:open source

[xetaprag]

While profitability is important for emerging companies, for most established companies increased revenue=increased profits. Profit margins are something else entirely. You don't want to help your competition. They might come along at some point in the future and cause you harm. Go ask Steve Jobs if this is true. The goal is to kill off the competition. It works for Microsoft. Say what you will about MS products, the company is the most PROFITABLE (read highest profit margin) company in S&P 500. An it will work for Oracle. In a decade, Peoplesoft will be a forgotten name. This "rising tide" argument is crap becusase it fails to recognize that most markets are a zero-sum game. There are only so many dollars to go around and each firm is competing to secure the largest portion of this limit pool. If I secure a large enough share of these dollars, I can suck the air out of the market and force out my competitors. I'll worry about profit margins later.

Re:open source

[CaptainPotato]

Try telling that to my employer, which had to adapt its business practices because PeopleSoft wouldn't produce an Australian-focussed system. This is despite PeopleSoft being employed widely at universities across the country.

The highlight of this process, IMO, was the need to rename subjects to courses, courses to programs, and programs to careers, so that there would be no confusion...

After several years of using PeopleSoft, the university *still* cannot get completely accurate student statistics. And, no, this isn't a user issue...

Re:open source

[jeif1k]

when it comes to ERP and other financial packages is the shitload of regulatory requirements

Accounting is only a small part of the software SAP sells.

Also IMO you either have to be an accountant or at least have to have a good understanding of accounting or you just will not get it right.

Sure. But this kind of knowledge is no more obscure than C semantics. There are experts inside every business that know this stuff inside-and-out, and they would be involved if a company decides to participate in building an OSS project. OSS projects, like other projects, do gather requirements and talk to users.

Re:open source

[obdulio]

Writing an OS is easy, writing Oracle Apps, SAP or Peoplesoft is much more complicated. Why?

Because there is only one Linus Torvalds and he works in Operating Systems, not ERP applications....

Re:open source

[EastCoastSurfer]

For businesses, this makes excellent sense.

I'm failing to see how it makes sense. As the company who originally wrote the software you already own the code. After the original development cost you're continuing to invest 80k/year for updates and additional features. Why does it make sense to release that code as GPL so that your competitors can use it for free? They get to take advantage of your original investment and your current investment without making any investment of their own.

It's a double whammy if the application happened to give the original company a competitive advantage. Mainly because they lose the advantage (by giving it to their competitors) and they still have the expense of the software.

So, what happens to the Peoplesoft-IBM Alliance?

[Cletus the yokel]

Peoplesoft and IBM recently penned a strategic alliance to resell and promote each others' products. So I guess this will begoing the way of the dodo. Or will it? Will the contract language leave Oracle in the embarrassing position of promoting DB2 as the preferred database platform for Peoplesoft and JD Edwards?

I'm also wondering, long-term, about support from Oracle for Peoplsoft on platforms other than Oracle. Will Oracle support Peoplesoft on Oracle, Oracle, and Oracle? My understanding that most Peoplesoft implementations were historically SQL Server with the new preferred platform being DB2. if that changes again it'd be BIG headaches for DB2 customers...

Not that bad

[spectrokid]

If you merge, the biggest thing you buy is the other guys customers. If Oracle hangs you out to dry, you can just as well move to SAP. That would be money straight out of the window for Oracle. So expect a super soft and cuddely migration, spread over several years...

Great!

[stateofmind]

Our company has been eagerly waiting for this merger. We completed a merger ourselves, last year.

It gave us the benefit of having both Oracle and PeopleSoft experts/consultants.

How many people work in a shop, that primarily uses Oracle? We use Oracle for the database, JDeveloper for the IDE (working on getting us to switch to Eclipse), Oracle Forms and now Oracle Portal.

I'm in charge of getting our Java environment up and running and moving us from PHP web application development, to Java. PHP may still be used for smaller applications, but Java will take over for the larger projects we now have coming in.

A few people want to use JDeveloper for the IDE, Oracle App Server for the Java server, and ADF for the architecture, and then of course Oracle for the db. Which I'm in total disagreement with, as it's putting to many of our eggs in one basket.

I'm fine with Oracle as our database (we also use postgreSQL). And can live with using JDeveloper for our IDE. (as I said, trying to get Eclipse). But I would much rather use JBoss or Tomcat for the app server and no way am I using ADF for the architecture. Spring Framework, all the way. :)

Josh

Re:Great!

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Last gig was all oracle, all the time (big enterprise license). stay far, far, far away from Oracle's app server. It's certainly NOT worth paying for. Jdeveloper isn't bad, but there is no reason it can't coexist with developers who'd rather use eclipse (some did). ADF ? I'd rather use something standardized like Struts.

Re:Great!

[stateofmind]

Have you ever looked at the Spring Framework? If you like Struts, you'd fall in love with Spring.

Josh

Re:Great!

[rushfan]

Actually ADF sits on top of struts and provides simplified data binding and other benefits. And the core of it is JSR-227. Before you discount it you should at least try it out, it works quite well and is pretty easy.

-- Rob

Re:So, what happens to the Peoplesoft-IBM Alliance

[Cletus the yokel]

Oh. Disclaimer time. Yes, I am an IBMer. And yes, I do work with DB2. And no, I'm not FUDing - I am speaking personally here. While the Oracle deal may or may not have a minimal impact on me and my job, my main concern is that the little guy may get the shaft here based on on some of Larry Ellison's verbal excretions back in 2003, indicating that they were more interested in the customer base than the product.

Interesting take on things...

[arashiakari]

I know it is offtopic, but from that perspective, Saddam Hussein stole $4 from every man woman and child on the planet, and for some people $4 is a week or a month's pay. Since he stole it from the U.N. ...he really did steal it from everyone.

Re:Total value...

[slyckshoes]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Oracle had little interest in PeopleSoft's products and more interest in removing a competitor. PeopleSoft and IBM are tight (PeopleSoft's products can be deployed on WebSphere, I believe) and purchasing PeopleSoft (and stopping development on their products) would not only remove a competitor, it would also be detrimental to IBM. That's why PeopleSoft created the poison pill, they feared that Oracle would buy them and then stop supporting their customers and instead foist their own solutions on them. If you've already got PeopleSoft + WebSphere, it's not so difficult to go with DB2 over Oracle, but if you have Oracle already, you'll buy their DB too.

Re:Total value...

[Democratus]

That's not exactly how it works.

The wonderful thing about buying another company is that you get a great deal of your money back.

I was involved in a large buyout recently and got to see what a boondogle it really is.

You see, Oracle gives all this money to PeopleSoft - and then it owns PeopleSoft and all the money that it just got paid.

The only real loss of money is the cash-outs for the major stockholders. Generally the deal is done as part cash and part stock. The ratio of cash-to-stock is part of the buyout deal. Any monies that go into the PeopleSoft treasury becomes the property of Oracle once the merger is complete.

In the buyout I got to observe first hand, our company was purchased for around $50 million. $35 million of this went right back into the purchasing company, so the real cost was only $15 million. ...who said math isn't fun?

you can't get away!

[MyDixieWrecked]

I have a friend who used to work for oracle, but quit because she didn't like it and now works for peoplesoft. She can't get away! ahhh!

Not final?

[doodlelogic]

Doesn't this require shareholder approval first? What if someone came along with a better offer?

Re:Not final?

[jdigital]

Shareholders approved the deal at $24. Please note that almost 70% of PSFT's shareholders are currently institutional investors who have seen value in Oracle's offer for a long time. The analysts concensus is that PSFT is worth around $21/per share. So $24/share assumed some synergies. At $30/Share, ORCL could still afford the deal, but it would no longer be accretive (increase ORCL's EPS post-merger). So PSFT knew they could get away with asking for 26.50.

Just another MBA student passing through.

Re:Not final?

[Joff_NZ]

So $24/share assumed some synergies.

Assumed some what now??

Re:Not final?

[jdigital]

Let me re-phrase that. So $24/share assumed that ORCL would be better off buying market share from PSFT :)

affordability

[harryoyster]

If oracle made products that where affordable then they wouldnt be able to buy peoplesoft.

Best Bet

[nurb432]

Is to wait it out, since any move will cost you a lot of cash, both hard cash and time..

Most likely oracle will let people migrate to what ever they come up with when the 2 products are merged. And most likely most will choose that route.

Not that i like oracles products, but once you spend several million to get PS running, you really dont have much of a choice realistically..

Re:Total value...

[nelsonal]

I believe in this case Oracle paying cash for Peoplesoft. Not that it will break the bank mind you, but it does delay share repurchases for Oracle for a year or two. Between the two companies there is ~$10.8 billion in cash and short term equivalents.

Re:So, what happens to the Peoplesoft-IBM Alliance

[Software]

>Will the contract language leave Oracle in the embarrassing position of promoting DB2 as the preferred database platform for Peoplesoft and JD Edwards?

The press release says nothing about PSFT (now ORCL) having to promote DB2. It's IBM that's promoting DB2 as the database of choice for PSFT. I highly doubt that the contract says anything about PSFT promoting DB2. At best, it might specify that PSFT has to remain compatible with DB2 for a specified period of time, but even that's unlikely. I'd bet that 90% of the contract is about how to divvy up the revenue from joint sales.

These types of "strategic alliances" are ordinary in the enterprise software industry and mean very little. Companies typically have them with just about every other company in the space except for direct competitors. This one will go the way of the dodo eventually, but it wasn't much to begin with.

Maybe NOT so painful for us dweebs

[HawkinsD]

"There is great disorder under heaven, and the situation is excellent."

-- Old Chinese proverb

Maybe it won't suck. Keep in mind that there's going to be turmoil, and turmoil creates opportunities for the geeks who maintain these systems (I assume that you're one of the above, since you're posting on Slashdot).

Maybe you'll have to learn Oracle. Maybe there'll be massive retraining. Maybe you'll have to rip everything out and start over. This would be a good time to ask for a raise.

The consulting gravy train will be significantly lengthened by Oracle's discontinuing of PeopleSoft, or even appearing to be thinking about it. Dweebs with HRIS implementation skills, who are flexible, will see demand for their services increase.

Same here but I can't wait

[Stone316]

I hope they replace the software ASAP! I've had the pleasure of supporting their CRM software for the past 10 months and its been the most painfull experience i've had in awhile. This weekend we had to upgrade peopletools because of a severe design issue which caused insane locking in the database.

Re:Total value...

[TyfStar]

This is how I understood it: Oracle has their peoplesoft-ish product.. but it sucks and then some. It has 1 or 2 good features, but for the most part, it's awful. I mean, that's why people WENT to peoplesoft. But.. Peoplesoft has it's OH-MY-GOD-THIS-SUCKS part too. Right before Oracle started threatening to take over, everyone bitched NON STOP about PS. Hell.. it wasn't too long ago that universities were buying peoplesoft, and halfway through implementation said "nuh uh.. this is going to cost us 3x as much as originally stated!" and dumped it. Peoplesoft needed a reorg as is. I'd say take 1 horrid program, 1 mediocre program, merge the best parts together, and VOILA! buy your Database, 3rd party app, and even the app servers from the same person. Could happen. Oh.. the poison pill was because Oracle said "hey, we're not going to support this crap after 1 year & force you to get on ours" ... and all the peoplesoft customers-to-be said "uh, I'm not buying you then." ... but PS had to stay afloat, so the pill was "if you buy now, and Oracle takes over & stops supporting it, you can get 3x your money back." Pretty good money, if you feel like holding on. Of course, this was all just rumours around the Tech Support office for a university depending on PS.

Whoops, forgot

[TychoCelchuuu]

In Korea, only old people acquire Peoplesoft :D Contrary to a bunch of the people here, I think it's nice that we can get more consolidation. The sooner we get it down to 2 or 3 gigantic competitors, the sooner more small people can start up and fill the gaps. Assuming they aren't stifled by the big people already in place. Oh well. Good luck, new startup companies! If there are any. I'm sure there'll be at least one.

Damn shame.

[rscrawford]

From the Computer World article: "After careful consideration, PeopleSoft's board decided that Oracle's latest offer provides good value for PeopleSoft's stockholders, the company said. The agreement ends a long, emotional struggle, it said."

I hate it when execs say things like this, because they don't mean a word of it. What they really mean is, "After careful consideration, PeopleSoft's board decided that they would make a hell of a lot of money, and screw the little guys -- like customers, employees, etc."

Oracle wants nothing with PeopleSoft except to destroy it utterly. They don't want any competition in the marketplace, and PeopleSoft is their only competition. Ellison, the madman, said so himself way back at the beginning of this fiasco.

My father-in-law and a very good friend of mine are both software consultants for PeopleSoft. They may get to keep their jobs, since Oracle doesn't currently have a CRM product, but I expect they're both going to be looking for work before 2005 is done with.

Simply more proof that the world is going to hell.

Re:Damn shame.

[Art Tatum]

Public companies work for the shareholders--NOT the customers or employees. Many folks don't seem to realize that.

That being said, if the comments on this thread are accurate, PeopleSoft will be around well past 2005. Your father-in-law might want to start retraining, however. That's how tech works.

Re:Damn shame.

[rscrawford]

Still a shame. It would be nice if public companies did concern themselves with providing services to the public. Of course they don't, which is a pity.

Re:Damn shame.

[rscrawford]

Ah, in addition. My father-in-law is well into his fifties. Most companies will not want to hire someone his age.

That, also, is how tech works.

Re:Damn shame.

[Art Tatum]

Still a shame. It would be nice if public companies did concern themselves with providing services to the public. Of course they don't, which is a pity.

Well, it's the shareholders who pay the bills. :-) Which is one reason (among many) I would never take a company public if I ran one.

Ah, in addition. My father-in-law is well into his fifties. Most companies will not want to hire someone his age.

Yep. Does he live in a state where a teaching license is not required? His experience could be very beneficial to some school kids. If he is willing to put up with the school system. Of course, there are usually some pretty good private schools, if he's amenable to the idea. He would be more likely to get kids that are actually interested in learning something.

Couldn't be any worse

[bigbigbison]

Indiana University switched over to a peoplesoft solution this year and it is the biggest steaming pile of crap I've ever seen. registering for classes is an arcane practice at best now. When it was first rolled out you couldn't look up a class by it's name or the department it was in but an obscure numerical code that had no relationship to the course number. I and several other people were on a waitlist to get into a course and only by accident a week before classes started one of us noticed there were spaces in the class, and yet we were all still on the waitlist and none of us had been notified.

There have also been cases where students didn't get their loan checks and I have experienced numerous times when the system, even when not under heavy load, has said i am not logged in right in the middle of doing something or said i didn't have permission to access something even though it is my records and the classes I am teaching as a grad student.

To top it all off, it is a web portal with a million links and buttons and tabs just like the web portals back in '99 that were really cool and then crashed and burned.

I can't imagine that Oracle could make things any worse.

Re:Couldn't be any worse

[ClamBoy]

I've work in a PeopleSoft on Oracle environment right now as well as having worked with Kronos and Agresso (both other ERPish apps). I don't have any experience with student admin, but what you're describing sounds to me like a flawed implementation. Because the applications have to work in so many environments, there are many ways to set up the system to meet your business rules. Design, build, test applies very much to these apps.

All too often I people bag on a system (when that's what you see that's what the target is)when it's really an implementation problem. Unclear business requirements, over-customization, poor or even non-testing. These aren't out-of-the-box apps.

Re:Couldn't be any worse

[acceleriter]

If you've got to "design, build, test" with these applications, what's the advantage of buying over building? I mean, why pay millions of $ if you're going to have to expend thousands of man-hours of development effort to beat PeopleSoft into something usable for your institution when you could spend those hours rolling your own, and not have to pay perpetual rental fees, to boot?

Re:Couldn't be any worse

[Hognoxious]

If you've got to "design, build, test" with these applications, what's the advantage of buying over building?

Well, if it works like SAP, there are chunks of prepared functionality, but you still have to choose them and fit them together. The trick is to try to not carve the bulding blocks too much; sadly, that's what they do on many implementations - often as a misguided attempt to create a step by step replica of the system they're replacing, rather than looking at the big picture and focusing on the results.

I mean, why pay millions of $ if you're going to have to expend thousands of man-hours of development effort

Because it's cheaper than spending billions of $ and millions of man hours to largely reinvent the wheel?

Re:Couldn't be any worse

[bigbigbison]

I don't have any experience with the backend of the system so it may well be a problem with the implimentation, but it is just infuriating that they replaced a system that was admittedly dated, but worked, with this stystem that doesn't work half the time and is dated in other ways.

Re:Couldn't be any worse

[jacobcaz]

• Indiana University switched over to a peoplesoft solution this year and it is the biggest steaming pile of crap I've ever seen.

I don't know who worked on the implementation but your implementation team will make or break everything when it comes to PeopleSoft.

We had a fairly small team of consultants during our PeopleSoft implementation. One of the things they didn't properly do was a full fit-gap analysis of our current business processes and how they would map into PeopleSoft. They just sort of jumped in and ran with the install/configuration of the system.

We get into the pilot testing phases and realize there are _A LOT_ of places where PeopleSoft just plain doesn't work with our existing business processes. We needed to change our process because it would be to difficult/expensive to change PeopleSoft.

If we could have presented this to everyone up front before getting to deep into the process of implementing PeopleSoft we could have fixed it or made some initial design changes. Instead, our implementation team plowed ahead and we bore the burden of "making it work for us."

So PeopleSoft isn't always at fault. You have to take a long hard look at those who set it up and at those who speced the back-end servers. That was another thing our consultants really fscked up, they way underspeced the servers and a year later we're really feeling the crunch.

Of course all the system and configuraion decisions were set in stone before I got here so I've inherited cleaning everything up!

Go easy on those who are stuck making the system work, they may have be handed a badly configured, poorly designed system from the start. All I know is the consultants here never missed sending a bill for their (hourly) time.

P.S. Double and triple check that your PeopleSoft consultants really do know what they're doing. It sounds stupid, but a lot of "PeopleSoft consultants" have no idea what they're doing!

Re:Couldn't be any worse

[transient]

My mother used to be Director of Advising at IU's School of Journalism, and I remember her talking about PeopleSoft five years ago. Seriously, what is wrong with this software? How did they manage to make it so bloody awful? We use Oracle Financials where I work and it is similarly steaming and craptastic.

Oracle and PeopleSoft: Their powers combined, they will produce some of the worst software on Earth.

Remember PepsiCo & Kentucky Fried Chicken???

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

The match is a good one, and I think that both the customers and the companies will benefit.

Oracle is in the business of selling Relational Databases [RDBs]. Unfortunately, with competition from DB2/Informix, SQLServer, Sybase, Ingres, MySQL, Postgres, and a myriad of tiny little database vendors you've never heard of [Progress/ObjectStore, Intersystems/Cache, Versant/POET, Objectivity, etc], the database end of things is rapidly becoming little more than a commodity.

Increasingly, the profit is in the middleware & the front ends, where the business logic and the "schema" reside. Oracle is rather weak in those areas, hence its desire to subsume whatever logic/schema template vendors [and customer bases married to those templates] that it can get its grubby little hands on.

The problem is that most of Oracle's channel is pursuing the very same market, so that Oracle has, in effect, declared war on its own channel. And the road to business hell is paved with the skeletons of enterprises that thought they could screw the channel and get away with it.

Ever wonder why you can only order a Coca-Cola in a restaurant? Ie: Why is it that you can never find Pepsi products when you go out to eat? Setting aside the fact that Coke might have a better sales staff, a better management team, and a better product at a better price, the reason is that PepsiCo declared war on their channel when they purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut.

And you know what the channel - from the little Mom-n-Pop restaurants down the street, all the way to the global oligopolies, like McDonald's & Burger King - had to say in response?

SCREW YOU, PEPSICO!!!

Larry Ellison, you have been forewarned...

Mod Parent up...

[Cletus the yokel]

... and post corroborating links if you have 'em. I remember hearing Ellison say this in 2003, and I remember thinking that there was no way in hell this takeover would fly:
1) The PSFT board would fight like hell (they did),
2) the justice Dept. would step in (they did, and lost),
3) the EU would kibosh it (they didn't).

I guess they're handing sweaters out in hades today.

Re:Total value...

[aralin]

You said to correct you if you are wrong, which I am doing here. Oracle is interested in extremly profitable support contracts on PeopleSoft software. All the speculations about killing PeopleSoft make no sense. The merger will cause Oracle to get all the benefits and almost none of the costs from these support contracts. They were what fed the PS marketing and sales droids. Oracle will slash these and make a huge profit. Not promoting or activelly selling new licenses is what Oracle intends, but passive sales (initiated by Customers) and support contracts will go on, since they increase Oracle bottom line by over 17%.

Peoplesoft is nasty...

[ksc]

...so maybe with Oracle, we can finally have Peoplesoft SW that doesn't suck quite so horribly, ghastly, insanely bad?

Good Larry vs. Evil Larry

[FluffyKitty]

The funny thing is, in my PeopleSoft training classes, the instructors all loathed Larry Ellison, yet 90% of the students' companies (mine included) used Oracle databases with their PeopleSoft HR installations. To me, it's a winning combination (not that either product is perfect, of course).

The "Good" Larry Ellison would keep/enhance PeopleSoft's HR products, scrap Oracle's inferior apps, and retain support for other database platforms. "Evil" Larry Ellison would force PeopleSoft customers to switch to Oracle HR and only allow them to use Oracle's database with it. Will good triumph over evil? I am not holding my breath :(

JDE World Software?

[Shivetya]

I believe the JDE software that Oracle wants to keep is the OneWorld - which is PC server based and rarely works. I am curious what happens to the World software (runs on IBM iSeries). Considering how much money my company dumped on it this is going to decide some things for us.

Hopefully we will ditch it soon, we are 4+ years in and only deployed at 2 out of 55 locations. Can you say "software doesn't fit us"?

I still see this buy as a customer buy.

Re:JDE World Software?

[gkirkend]

Your comments are factually incorrect. I am one of the original OneWorld developers (DB Middleware Project Lead) and take great issue with your comments.

OneWorld runs on AS/400, HP/UX, Solaris, Linux (In Beta) and MS Windows. Databases supported, Oracle, MS SQL Server, DB2 UDB and DB2/400. World runs on the AS/400 only. World still has a loyal following.
I have worked as a consultant at a Multi-billion company that has successfully deployed to over 1000 users on three continents with plans to roll out to 3000 more. If you would like to get some help with your rollout issues, take a look at http://www.theiconsortium.com. There are many experienced consultants there that would be glad to assist.

Oracle Support - - HA!

[berkeleydb]

"We intend to immediately extend and improve support for existing JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers worldwide. " If this is the same type of support Oracle supplies to their own customers, look out. Oracle's Metalink support for products other than the flagship database is quite poor. I've been working with Oracle Application Server for two years, and I've seen simple questions go two to four weeks without resolution, and easily go a week or so without updates. They have absolutely decimated Oracle Support over the past few years. The dummy factor there is outrageous, and their people function at the level of Wal Mart associates. It appears that the only people who survive working there are the B.S. artists. My favorite response from an Oracle Support person is when I complained on Metalink that my TAR had not been updated in seven days. Full Reponse: "It's only been SIX days." ....End of response. Good luck Peoplesoft and J.D. Edwards customers... Welcome to the null support zone.

You know

[CaptainZapp]

I really hate your reply.

And I totally agree.

This is an opportunity...

[AmazingRuss]

..for all you unemployed geinii out there. Two huge companies that produce shitty user experiences are becoming one huge company. What d'you think is going to happen to user experience? Time to put together a team, set sights on a vertical market and take that fucker away from them.

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

Same Oracle that thinks China's governmental censorship is A-OK?

Yes, yes, Microsoft, Google, blahblahblah. Are Microsoft, Google, et al pushing hardcore for a National ID card?

that's not how OSS works

[jeif1k]

How many programmers out there will say "Huh, I don't like this PeopleSpft stuff, I will write my own ERP software!"?

That's not how OSS works.

How it works is that some small-to-medium company says "we only need a simple ERP system and we are tired of paying big bucks or getting jerked around by our vendor, we can so something simple ourselves". Then, that company discovers that maintenance gets cheaper when they release it open source. Then, other companies start adding features.

Programmers do the work for the same reason they always have: they get paid for it.

Thousands of Peoplesoft consultants...

[NewOrleansNed]

... will find it tougher and tougher to find work soon. The problem is that Peoplesoft's system is nothing like Oracle's and managers aren't going to care how much experience they have if they don't have that Oracle ERP experience. Consulting in the ERP sector is TOUGH business. You spend thousands and thousands of dollars on training, get categorized based on what version number of the software you've worked on, and now, there will be a huge number of extra workers who will flood the Oracle market. This is going to lower the rates for Oracle consultants, which were already some of the lowest in the ERP sector and considerably lower than SAP's. You can get a year's worth of training at Oracle University on virtually their entire software library for a few hundred bucks.

Pretty sad..

[EvilStein]

If what I'm reading has been correct...

* PeopleSoft will vanish, as Oracle wanted to eliminate their software.
* Thousands of employees here in the Bay Area will lose their jobs
* The PeopleSoft execs will walk away with "golden parachutes" valued in the millions.
* The shareholders will profit.

Employees lose. Customers lose. How lovely.

Re:Pretty sad..

[ackatack]

I completely agree.

Re:Pretty sad..

[tantalic]

While I am certainly not a fan of market consolidation as competition is a very necessary component of a capitalism. However, your comments are way off mark.

Oracle has aquired PeopleSoft for one reason, to increase their profits. While one way they do this is elimitating one competitor, it is not the sole method. To get the most profit from this buy out Oracle must retain PeopleSoft costumers, the increased customer base for Oracle products is the single most important asset they will recieve from PeopleSoft. In order to keep those costumers Oracle will fully support PeopleSoft products, continue development of PeopleSoft 9, and combine features of PeopleSoft and Oracle to provide PeopleSoft and Oracle customers with a better product to upgrade to.

PeopleSoft will not "vanish" in the short term it will continue to be supported and developed and in the long term PeopleSoft technologies will be integrated into the future versions of Oracle. Employees will remain with Oracle in order to facilitate this development.

Re:Pretty sad..

[EvilStein]

" Craig Conway, PeopleSoft's CEO, would get a "lavish golden parachute" of about $40 million if Oracle's buyout goes through, according to TheStreet.com"

Not off the mark at all. Some people are making a TON of money off of this, and a lot of employees have already lost their jobs.

Re:Pretty sad..

[tantalic]

I did not deny the claim that PeopleSoft's board would profit from this deal. I do however find it hard to believe that "a lot of employees have already lost their jobs" since they just agreed to the merger this morning and it will not be final for a couple months. Some employees will certainly be let go, however it has been repeatedly stated that Oracle will retain the PeopleSoft developers and support staff. And PeopleSoft software certainly will not "vanish."

Re:Pretty sad..

[Art Tatum]

Some people are making a TON of money off of this, and a lot of employees have already lost their jobs.

Suggestion: instead of whining, become an investor and get in on the goods.

Re:Pretty sad..

[EvilStein]

My brother's roommate worked there. He was one of many people let go in silent layoffs that have been going on there for a while.

So yes, people are losing jobs at PeopleSoft.

Re:Pretty sad..

[tantalic]

Well if your brother's roommate was let got in a 'silent layoff' then he was layed off by PeopleSoft and not by Oracle, as they have not even completed the takeover, and at the time he was layed off there wasn't even a deal for a takeover.

As for the idea of a 'silent layoff' any substantially sized layoff cannot remain silent.

JdeAlumni.org

[jxs2151]

Former JD Edwards employees can take a look at JdeAlumni.org

Great!

[CrazyTalk]

Since I know Oracle, now I can update my resume to say that I know Peoplesoft as well, since they are the same company.

Re:Remember PepsiCo & Kentucky Fried Chicken??

[Axe]

SCREW YOU, PEPSICO!!!

And what did Pepsi say in return?

"As if we care".

Just compare Pepsi vs Coca Cola stock price

It is official; Slashdot confirms...

[Money for Nothin']

It is official; Slashdot confirms: PeopleSoft is being eaten!

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered PeopleSoft community when IDC confirmed that PeopleSoft market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Slashdot poll which plainly states that PeopleSoft has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. PeopleSoft is being swallowed by Oracle, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive database test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict PeopleSoft's future. The hand writing is on the wall: PeopleSoft faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for PeopleSoft because PeopleSoft is being eaten. Things are looking very bad for PeopleSoft. As many of us are already aware, PeopleSoft continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

PeopleSoft Enterprise is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time PeopleSoft Enterprise developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: PeopleSoft Enterprise is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne. How many users of dbase are there? Let's see. The number of PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne versus dbase posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 dbase users. DB2 posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of dbase posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of DB2. A recent article put PeopleSoft Enterprise at about 80 percent of the PeopleSoft market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 PeopleSoft Enterprise users. This is consistent with the number of PeopleSoft Enterprise Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, PeopleSoft Enterprise went out of business and was taken over by IBM who sell another troubled OS. Now IBM is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that PeopleSoft has steadily declined in market share. PeopleSoft is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If PeopleSoft is to survive at all it will be among database dilettante dabblers. PeopleSoft continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, PeopleSoft is dead.

Fact: PeopleSoft is dying.

not substitutes

[jeif1k]

Accpacc, Great Plains, and Peachtree are accounting packages; I don't see how they compare to SAP or Peoplesoft. In fact, many organizations probably need the non-accounting functionality of SAP or Peoplesoft more urgently than the accounting stuff, since they probably already have accounting solutions in place that they trust.

Re:Total value...

[DukeTuring]

The merger is good for Oracle because they've taken out a competitor but it will suck for PeopleSoft customers because they will eventually will have to migrate to an inferior product.

It may just be my premonition, but I have this feeling that Peoplesoft's best people (who really built a good product) will be the first ones leaving because they'd hate working for a competitor that they've long considered as second-rate.

Oracle may have gotten its way in the end, but ironically, it maybe SAP who gains the most in this deal...

Wrong decade, wrong ticker symbol

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Coke is KO.
Coke Bottling is COKE.

PepsiCo is PEP.
Pepsi Bottling is PBG.

You want KO & PEP, not KO & PBG.

Also, PepsiCo's venture into the restaurant biz occurred in the 1970s [before many /.ers were born], and PepsiCo exited the restaurant biz in 1997:

http://www.corp-research.org/archives/jan01.htm

If you look at the correct Yahoo graph [going back to about 1978], you will see that, in the mid- to late-nineties, when the stock market was booming, Coke had increased by almost 6000%, whereas PepsiCo had increased by only about 3000%, and the peak disparity was circa January of 1998, just after PepsiCo had divested themselves of the restaurant businesses.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=PEP&l=on&z=m& q=l&c=KO

More recently, PepsiCo appears to have caught and even surpassed Coke, but that only starts to occur circa 2001-2003, about 4-6 years AFTER the divestiture, i.e. about 4-6 years AFTER PepsiCo made peace with the channel.