Partners welcome Oracle-PeopleSoft merger

BANGALORE: Indian system integrators are clearly relieved to see the resolution of the 18 month long tussle between Oracle and PeopleSoft. Major Indian SIs including Wipro, Infosys and Satyam have partnerships with Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP. Hexaware Technologies, which recently opened a PeopleSoft services center in Bangalore, views the buyout as a positive development. In addition to PeopleSoft, Hexaware has partnerships with Oracle, SAP and others.






"We are encouraged by Oracle Corporation's statements to support PeopleSoft applications until 2013. Hexaware is one of the leading PeopleSoft service providers globally and we believe that our customer base for supporting and maintaining PeopleSoft products should expand in the future," said Hexaware chairman Atul Nishar.
Oracle Corporation's long drawn and bitter battle to takeover PeopleSoft finally drew to a close with Oracle announcing that it has clinched the deal at $10.3 billion. PeopleSoft gave in when Oracle raised the offer by 10 percent to $26.4 a share from $24. With this development, Oracle would emerge as the number two player in the global enterprise applications industry after German giant SAP.

PeopleSoft's board, which repeatedly rebuffed the advances of Oracle and vowed to fight into next year, relented after Oracle sweetened its proposal 10 percent, to $26.50 a share in cash, over the weekend. Both Oracle India and PeopleSoft, which have a significant presence in India, declined to comment immediately.

While the specifics and implications of the merger are not yet known, a statement from Oracle reassured PeopleSoft customers saying, "Oracle understands that each PeopleSoft customer has made a significant investment in its current software applications and that it is critical these purchases retain their value and usefulness. We have spent a significant amount of time and resources in the pursuit of PeopleSoft because we believe that the combined companies will provide customers with superior benefits and a stronger long-term alternative. The combination will ensure continued innovation in a rapidly changing market while at the same time preserving customers' existing IT investments. "






According to IDC India head Kapil Singh, though the takeover bid was expected for some time now, only the final price on the deal was something that was not known. "Oracle was interested in PeopleSoft since it wants to boost its business applications space. Oracle is traditionally strong in infrastructure and middleware but not very strong in the applications arena," he said.





Further, he thinks, that PeopleSoft's strong portfolio of 15,000 customers could help Oracle become a strong player in the business applications space and take on market leader SAP. <


CyberMedia News