Ellison Looks To Pull A PeopleSoft On BEA

from the gotta-keep-SAP-out-of-the-headlines dept

You didn't think that Larry Ellison would let SAP keep the headlines very long for moving to buy Business Objects did you? Just a couple days after that news broke, Ellison made an unsolicited bid to buy BEA. BEA has rejected the offer, saying that it's too low -- and responding in a rather aggressive manner. Of course, this might sound like deja vu. Oracle made an unsolicited bid for PeopleSoft four years ago (days after PeopleSoft announced it was buying JD Edwards), which the company spurned leading to a protracted legal fight that eventually resulted in Oracle winning, and Ellison's antagonists getting shunted aside. That took 18 months. How long do you think this one will take? In the meantime, the lesson seems clear. When two Oracle competitors announce a multi-billion dollar deal, give it two or three days before Oracle will respond with its own (unsolicited) multi-billion dollar acquisition attempt.

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