While Oracle and PeopleSoft Are to Fuse, Competitors Ruse--Leaving Customers (Somewhat) Bemused
Olin Thompson and P.J. Jakovljevic - May 20, 2005

Observation of Recent Events

Courtroom drama, emotions, and personal recriminations have emerged from the flurry of typically friendly, if not civil, acquisitions in the IT world. While the business application software space began seeing consolidations as early as the 1990s with the disappearance of once prominent names like Dun & Bradstreet Software or ASK Group, an onslaught of mergers emerged in the early 2000s, disconcerting many customers. Yet few of these mergers have had more impact than that between business applications heavyweights Oracle and PeopleSoft. Early 2005 marked the end of over eighteen months of tug-of-war between the two providers and the antagonistic merger resulted in a strange type of "algebraic calculus" where 3 + 2 = 2 and will fundamentally reshape the enterprise applications landscape...