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Oracle Dumps PeopleSoft Employees
curtain writes "The first move in Oracle's dismantling of PeopleSoft has begun. The cuts will affect about 9% of the 55,000 staff of the combined companies.
From the article:
"We're mourning the passing of a great company," Peoplesoft worker David Ogden as saying. Other employees said they would rather be sacked than work for Oracle."
When Oracle first made a bid for PeopleSoft in 2002, PeopleSoft froze all hiring, and completely halted their Linux initiatives.
Ever since then, both companies have had "financial challenges," and the combination of both companies was bound to create a lot of redundancies. It's just a pity that the combined company believes that there are over 5,000 redundant jobs in the merged corporation.
Of course, that also speaks -volumes- to both companies hiring policies. Oracle is famous for creating projects, pumping them with quick new hires, and then dumping the projects (and sometimes a hundred jobs).
It's not surprising, but what it says about corporate culture and hiring practices is sad.
"Don't worry about the problems you have in mathematics, I assure you mine are much greater." - Einstein c.1919
What a troll. It has absolutely nothing to do with the economy, and is exactly what happens during all tech aquisitions, regardless of overall economic conditions. The jobs aren't going to India -- they're being eliminated completely.
The first to go are redundant positions, i.e., HR, finance / legal, etc. Then most of the rest (dev, PS, and sales / marketing) are typically kept for a time to absorb what they know, and then axed. The creme of the crop are kept or induced to stay, but, like the article says, most of the PeopleSoft folks I know would rather quit than work for Orifice / Horricle.
Well, that was the point, wasn't it? Reduce headcount, cut costs, profit.
I suppose Oracle also wanted to get closer to a monopoly by gaining market share. The point of the whole exercise was profit, and maybe personnal aggrandizement, given the participants.
I remember hearing a news broadcast about People Soft when it was a new company. Just as the bubble started. Well PeopleSoft at the time was recognized for how well they treat their employees. There was a saying "If you don't like working for PeopleSoft then go to work for Oracle and really hate your job". I don't know how well PeopleSoft has been treating their employees since that report. But if they kept consistent switching to Oracle would probably make life miserable for a lot of people.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Maybe there is a justification for eliminating some of these jobs, but Wall St's myopic viewpoint (job cuts => profit!!!) has always bugged me.
Step 1. Buy Competing Technology
Step 2. Destroy Said Technology
Step 3. Slowly Move Those Customers To Core Product
Step 4. Profit!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
That reminds me of an old joke - "What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison?" "God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison."
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1. Corporations are not a democracy.
/waits for the revolution
2. Corporations do best for the shareholders.
3. The majority shareholders are mostly a small group of already wealthy people.
4. Aquire companies with "leveraged synergies".
5. Fire redundant pawns. Feed jobs overseas.
6. Lower competition.
7. Handfull of shareholders get even richer at the expense of thousands of families and the business es they patronize.
8. Most people and the local economy lose.
Welcome to the American Way.
"The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him, to ride their horses and take away their possessions, to see the faces of those dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms"
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I realy should read headlines more carefully . This time though ,it looks like i wasnt too far off.
IT people are not being laid off. Back-office people are being laid off. When you merge two companies, you wind up with two payroll departments, two HR departments, two legal departments, two accounting departments, etc.
Fifty years ago, you mostly kept everyone because everything was done manually. Today, if you have a (computerized) payroll system that can handle 40,000 employees, it can probably handle 55,000. If it can't, you generally add more hardware/IT resources, not more people. The same thing is largely true about most back-office jobs.
So, what do you do with thousands of redundant people? It's not realistic to think that you can retrain them all, or that they all want to be retrained ("hey, mister SPHR-certified HR specialist with 20 years' experience, here's a book on Java!")
The people who usually survive mergers are (a) people in the acquiring company, (b) people in the acquired company who are responsible for making/developing the product, and (c) good salespeople in the acquired company. That is certainly the pattern here.
I'm not saying that Oracle/Ellison is some lilly-white invisible-glad-hand or that the Oracle-Peoplesoft merger is a good thing...just saying that is the way it works in business and this wasn't really any surprise. This notion that "Wall Street loves job cuts" or "corporate America is so short-sighted" etc. doesn't survive that "well, what would you suggest instead?" test.
Advice: on VPS providers
...life HARD.
The bottom line isn't the only (or even the best) way to judge the contribution of a company to society. Many of the places I've worked at have had a relaxed atmosphere, even if the actual rate of "work" or "productivity" was lower than in a competitor's more agressive business. I'd still rather work for the relaxed business. ;)
1. if you are good at anything you will not have any trouble finding something else to do.
2. if you are good at what you are doing at work - you will not be fired
3. If you are not good at anything then why do you expect some one to support you?
I admire your ability to have that point of view. It was my own a few years back. The idea that pops into my head when I hear someone say such things now is 'young' or 'sheltered'.
Now, please do not get offended. I know these are not attributes that people want to be known for, but in this case, it also means you are lucky.
I hope that you can live your life without ever having to change the viewpoint you have.
This would mean that you never suffered a politically motivated coup at your job, or a stab in the back from a coworker that you never expected, or a layoff of a crew of great employees because management is concerned with how analysts will respond to week growth in the quarter.
These types of things happen, and none of them have anything to do with you as an individual. They are circumstances, things which are by definition not under your control.
If it's not one thing, it's Steve's Mother
My father-in-law, who was very worried about losing his job, will be able to stay. He's part of Oracle's new CRM division, which was part of the PeopleSoft deal.
Oracle's new CRM software came from PeopleSoft; before that, it was Vantive; before that it was Systar; before that it was Scotch-Bonnet; and before that it was Mobius. My father-in-law has stayed at the same desk for fifteen years, and worked for six different companies, including Oracle. He's a real 90s kind of guy.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.