Oracle is doing a hostile
Oracle is doing a hostile take-over on PeopleSoft. For those who don't know, PeopleSoft sells things like Enterprise Portals (like SAP). It's one of the few things companies are spending money on these days, and the move is towards selling complete enterprise solutions. Whoever wins in the enterprise portal market has a good handle to sell all the other enterprise systems as well (lock-in at work: integration nightmares mean IT departments are reluctant to buy products from too many different companies, even if the products from other companies are superior).
Motley Fool: "Just this past Monday, PeopleSoft announced that it would be buying smaller rival J.D. Edwards (Nasdaq: JDEC) for $1.7 billion in stock. The combination of the two companies would have catapulted them ahead of Oracle, to take over the No. 2 spot in the enterprise-applications software market. PeopleSoft had hoped to close the deal this fall. [..] Does Oracle really want PeopleSoft? Or does it just want to prevent the merger of two rivals that would surpass it once combined?"
InfoWorld: "If Oracle succeeds in its bid to acquire PeopleSoft, users are in for a rough transition, industry analysts said Friday."
IT-Director: "The normally staid world of the ERP gorillas has been thrown into turmoil this week. First PeopleSoft announced plans to acquire JD Edwards. Then Baan announced its sale and subsequent alignment with SSA technologies. Now Oracle has stated that it will be making an offer on Monday to buy PeopleSoft entirely.The only one we havent heard from yet this week is SAP.
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Instead, Oracle states that it will neither sell PeopleSoft applications to any new customers nor integrate the product lines of the two companies, thus reducing integration risks for customers trying to tie disparate systems together. Instead, the firm is pledging to offer streamlined, automated migration paths for PeopleSofts customers to move over to Oracle e-Business suite over time." (Good analysis here)