More About the Oracle vs. PeopleSoft Battle

In a previous blog, I talked about just how much and how little I knew about PeopleSoft. I revealed that, despite pursuing a career in IT, I did not realize that PeoplesSoft was a major database company. However, I knew that PeopleSoft was a big deal because everywhere I turned someone was talking about PeopleSoft training. I also noted that my previous employer was making the transisition to deploy PeopleSoft systems just as I was exiting the company. Later, I discovered via a lot of media coverage of the Oracle v. PeopleSoft battle just who and what PeopleSoft was and that they were fighting Oracle's acquistion of them. Also, I mentioned that employee and customer attitudes at Peoplesoft were very unfavorable toward Oracle for various reasons with the most primary being jobs and product support. Besides what I presented previously and knowledge of Oracle's successful acquisition, there was not much that I knew about the whole Oracle vs. PeopleSoft battle. Therefore, I ended my blog with the promise to go seek more information about it.

During my research, I found this article "PeopleSoft's Last Hurrah?(Gilbert 21-Sep-04)" on CNET News.com. After reading it, I discovered that the concerns for Oracle's plan to discontinue support of PeopleSoft were valid ones. I don't know the exact details because I did not have time to do as much digging as I would have liked, but in this article there was mention of Oracle's plans to support the product for only 10 years after the acquistion. My immediate sentiment upon reading that was "Ouch!" Then, I began to think that 10 years is a long time in IT and technology will inevitably change faster than we can adapt to and adopt it. Yet, I could not ignore feeling what a company who may have invested a lot of money into the PeopleSoft product might actually be thinking at the onset and end of this battle. They had to see it has sunk costs obviously and began the preparation of fundraising for what may be the eventual costs of a new database platform. Or they could run the risk of keeping a product for which support may be limited to the expertise of internal personnel via product experience.

I contemplated PeopleSoft’s position for awhile, taking into account employee and customer concerns. Then, I tried to visualize things from the Oracle perspective. PeopleSoft was Oracle’s biggest competitor and well business is business. If we see it from a general business perspective, then it is basically the survival of the fittest and Oracle was determined to be the survivor. I imagined that the employees and customers at Oracle could easily have been in the same positions as those at PeopleSoft. Therefore, I take no sides in this matter, but try to foster understanding in business.

However, I did not understand how PeopleSoft despite being "...the second-largest supplier of enterprise resource management software, behind SAP and just ahead of Oracle (Gilbert 1)" was in the unfortunate position of being taken over by the very company it seemed to be outperforming. I am sure if I dug a little deeper then I could trace it all back to the financial statements and well whatever else those Wall Street journalists report. My research unfortunately was limited by time and general concern to satisfy the jist of my curiosity despite the article revealing the financial problems PeopleSoft faced after acquiring a rival company as well. All and all what I learned about the Oracle vs. PeopleSoft battle was that it represented another cycle of business in which a hostile takeover led to antitrust suits, bitter words between opposing CEOs; the eventual win for the acquiring company and loss for the acquired company; and the usual gamut associated with mergers and acquisitions.

Still, I would like to know a little more about Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and other major providers of enterprise resource managemant software. I am really interested in Oracle more so now partly due to this topic, but primarily because it seems like the chosen one so often when I hear about databases, SQL, and other relative enterprise resource management discussions. Another unique reason is that there has been an Oracle headquarters or branch located near my past employer and now within walking distance of my home. Although I never really knew exactly what area I would pursue in IT, I always was fascinated by Oracle because of its association to databases and the fun I had building a database in community college. Who knows it may be a symbol of something, but I will not know until I actually gain more experience with database design without the ease of Microsoft Access.




Referencing Article:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/PeopleSoft-s-last-hurrah-/0,139023769,139160071-2,00.htm