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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff Posted on Monday, December 13, 2004 5:11:00 PM Sign Up to receive Daily News Alerts in your E-mail Inbox    | Abstract: | Following the news that PeopleSoft Inc. (Pleasanton, CA) had agreed to be acquired by Oracle Corp. (Redwood Shores, CA) for $10.3 billion, Oracle officials yesterday reiterated that the company will continue developing and supporting PeopleSoft applications while discontinuing active marketing of the three PeopleSoft product lines. |
In agreeing to a $26.50 per share offer, up $2.50 from Oracle's previous $24 bid, PeopleSoft's board brought to a conclusion a groundbreaking and contentious 18-month hostile takeover bid by Oracle. The deal, apparently worked out over the weekend, came as a Delaware court was scheduled to begin hearing arguments in Oracle's attempt to overturn an anti-takeover defense that had been erected by PeopleSoft. The deal followed the September ouster of PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway, who had forcefully and publicly fought the hostile takeover bid. In public statements on its Web site and in presentations to analysts, Oracle officials said that, in the short term, they plan to continue development on next-generation PeopleSoft application releases, including Version 9 of PeopleSoft's Enterprise applications and Version 6 of the World and EnterpriseOne products from J.D. Edwards, which were acquired by PeopleSoft in 2003. Oracle said that, following release of those products, it will "offer future applications that combine the best features and functions of each company's products and are tightly integrated with the rest of the Oracle infrastructure offerings." Oracle said PeopleSoft customers will receive the combined product free, on a module-for-module exchange basis under their existing maintenance licenses. Oracle said PeopleSoft customers can migrate to the merged product when they chose. Oracle said it will continue to develop and provide support for PeopleSoft's existing products. That support will include "[detection of] corrections as they arise, regular product enhancements such as new reports or functionality and certain regulatory updates." [Click to continue] |
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