Ellison: Oracle supports PeopleSoft products

CBS MarketWatch

NewsTeam | CBS [MarketWatch] | POSTED: 12.08.04 @17:51

Support for PeopleSoft products has been a bone of contention ever since Oracle launched its unsolicited takeover bid for the company in June 2003. Oracle has said on multiple occasions that it would fully support the next version of PeopleSoft software in development. Still, many analysts and customers expect the acquirer to try to move PeopleSoft customers to Oracle platforms in the coming years.

Oracle wants to acquire PeopleSoft to better compete against SAP , which is the world's largest maker of software used to manage customer information.

Sounding confident that Oracle would prevail in its plan to acquire PeopleSoft and take on SAP, Ellison told the crowd: "We are going to give SAP a run for their money."

The chief executive, who recently tried to buy the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, also said the York family, which owns the team, doesn't want to sell "so I can't buy."

Oracle has made five all-cash tender offers for PeopleSoft during the past 18 months. The latest bid of $24 a share, or about $9.2 billion, prompted holders of more than 60 percent of PeopleSoft shares to tender their holdings in support of the bid.

But PeopleSoft's board has rejected the offer, and Oracle has nominated is own slate of directors, setting up a proxy battle for control of the company at PeopleSoft's annual meeting this spring.

With regards to future software products, Ellison said that after completing PeopleSoft 9, Oracle would "build a successor product for PeopleSoft and Oracle" that would be dramatically better than the companies' current offerings.

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