Oracle puts low-price on information
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Storage assistant Oracle today makes its Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) Assistant available for free download.â¦
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BEA Systems has told Oracle the two companies can still make a deal -- just not the one on the table.Oracle released a statement Tuesday, saying BEA&#39;s board of directors had officially turned down its offer to buy the company. It set a deadline of Sunday at 5 p.m. Pacific time for BEA to accept the $17-per-share bid.But several hours later, BEA fired back its own missive in the form of a letter from William Klein, who is vice president of planning and development, to Oracle president Charles Phillips. In the letter, Klein characterized Oracle&#39;s offer as too low but made it clear BEA is not against being acquired for the right price.&quot;BEA is worth significantly more than $17 to Oracle, to others, and most importantly to BEA shareholders,&quot; the letter said. &quot;BEA&#39;s Board has not indicated that it would be opposed to a transaction that appropriately reflects BEA&#39;s value, reached through a reasonable process.&quot;An Oracle spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.The total value of Oracle&#39;s existing bid is about $6.7 billion, and the enterprise software giant said Tuesday it &quot;has no interest in a long, drawn-out process to acquire BEA.&quot;So far, the BEA-Oracle talks have sparked dueling public statements, missed meetings, and shareholder angst, but haven&#39;t been nearly as heated as other merger battles, such as&#160;Oracle&#39;s acquisition of PeopleSoft.Still, it remains unclear whether Oracle will increase its offer for BEA, which it termed &quot;generous&quot; in Tuesday&#39;s statement.&quot;Oracle typically has some [pricing] ratios it uses in its acquisition strategy,&quot; Forrester Research analyst Ray Wang said. &quot;If they really want to dominate the middleware space, this is an acquisition they&#39;d want to make.&quot;If it succeeds in buying BEA, Oracle would swallow up a major competitor in the application server space, a scenario that has had some observers wondering about the fate of BEA&#39;s technologies.Oracle&#39;s move to purchase BEA is only the latest in a string of high-profile buys in 2007. The company has forked over billions for a wide array of enterprise software companies, including business process management vendor&#160;Hyperion Solutions&#160;and application data grid player&#160;Tangosol.BEA has some products that would fill holes in Oracle&#39;s portfolio. But the two companies compete closely on other fronts, such as Web server and ESB (enterprise service bus) offerings.&quot;Those are areas with lots of overlap,&quot; Wang said. &quot;But there&#39;s a lot of good technologies on both sides.&quot;NOTE: This story includes comments from analyst Ray Wang that were also used in a previous update.
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One major shareholder says it won't touch Oracle's latest offer. Another says it likes the price. Who'll prevail?
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It looks like Oracle/PeopleSoft is a done deal. But why would Larry Ellison spend $10.3 billion for overlapping technology? For me, the answer comes in two parts.
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Oracle's offer of $17 per share? No thanks, BEA says again--and this time, it's countering with what it sees as a better value for its shareholders.
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Oracle Corp could reduce its offer for PeopleSoft Inc by as much as a third, to $2.5 billion or $14 a share, to reflect declining performance at the rival company, an Oracle executive reportedly testified yesterday.
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Oracle unveiled an information lifecycle management tool today for users of its database.
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TechWeb - Oracle has launched software that the company says is designed to provide &quot;low-cost&quot; management of Office documents, PDF and image files, and other unstructured data.
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Investor's Business Daily - The oracle of Oracle   seems to have pulled another rabbit out of his hat in his quest to buy rival PeopleSoft  . A majority of PeopleSoft shareholders appeared poised Friday to accept Oracle's offer of &#36;24 per share, though two analysts said it would be close. (Oracle planned to reveal results of its tender offer at about midnight, after press time.)
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A consultant offered advice Tuesday regarding how Oracle customers can get the best deal and protect themselves while licensing software from the enterprise software giant.Oracle&#39;s licensing practices have been maligned as overly confusing and unfair. But Eliot Arlo Colon, president of Miro Consulting, an independent firm in Fords, N.J., didn&#39;t get into specifics about particular policies, instead organizing a webinar around four categories: compliance, discounts, ongoing annual support costs, and terms and conditions.&quot;When I look at e-mail subject lines, these are the things we get hit with,&quot; Colon said.&quot;Compliance is the foundation. Without it, nothing else matters,&quot; he said, adding that it is &quot;not a gray area. Either you&#39;re compliant or you&#39;re not. ... If you consider areas [of use] gray, or your vendor considers areas gray, you should be concerned.&quot;Companies should self-audit their licenses twice a year, and it should be a &quot;thorough review,&quot; not a couple of mass e-mails, he said: &quot;It&#39;s definitely more of a bear than most people would anticipate.&quot;A third party should review the audit, and the company must possess a &quot;stated and defendable&quot; position on gray areas, he added. It is also wise to get assumptions confirmed in writing: &quot;If it&#39;s not stated in your agreement that you have that right, chances are you do not have that right,&quot; he said.Oracle vigorously defends its intellectual property, according to Colon. &quot;You always have to assume an audit is only 30 days away,&quot; he said. &quot;We&#39;ve worked with companies that say &#39;We&#39;re a strategic partner, we&#39;re in the Oracle top 50,&#39; and then they&#39;re audited.&quot;Colon offered a range of advice concerning license cost. While Oracle and other vendors tend to offer better deals at certain times of the year, customers shouldn&#39;t be easily tempted by a low price, he said: &quot;Waiting until a vendor&#39;s end-of-year, end-of-quarter may not be in your best interest if it&#39;s changing your business process. ... Everyone wants to get a good deal, but discount isn&#39;t the whole game. It&#39;s total cost of ownership.&quot;To that end, organizations should take a close look at their existing annual support costs, he said: &quot;You may find that your support is a lot better than you thought, or you might find products that you&#39;re supporting and not using. ... or that Oracle has acquired half the software you&#39;ve got and now it can be supported under one envelope.&quot;In fact, enterprises should review their annual support spending at least twice per year, Colon argued.IT shops should also seek to rework any complex and ambiguous language in license contracts; determine how globalization and consolidation has altered their company&#39;s licensing needs; mull the ramifications of licensing among mobile workers; and ensure they have collected all proofs of purchases for storage in an asset management repository, Colon said. His company advises enterprise-software customers of companies, including Oracle and Microsoft.When renewal time comes, companies should weigh whether it makes more sense to renew the existing pact or formulate a new one, according to Colon. &quot;Businesses are very dynamic. If you have an agreement signed four years ago, chances are it doesn&#39;t work for you today,&quot; he said.Firms must also ensure they and Oracle are working from the same set of terms and conditions, Colon warned: &quot;You want to make sure you&#39;re protected -- believe me, Oracle is going to make sure they&#39;re protected.&quot;
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Oracle Corp. on Monday introduced a standalone business intelligence product that&#39;s designed to address a large portion of an enterprise&#39;s analytical requirements, including information access
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$21 per share? You're having a laugh Oracle scoffed at BEA last night, describing the middleware's self-set $21 per share price tag as "impossibly high" and saying it had no intention of raising its offer.â¦
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LONDON -- Enterprise software giant Oracle may be known for big plans and bold moves, but the Redwood Shores, California, company has realized it also has to think small.
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Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ) will report fiscal first-quarter results. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call expect quarterly earnings of 9 cents per share on revenue of $2.
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Oracle Corp. chief executive Lawrence Ellison said discussions within the company at this point are leaning toward lowering the &#36;21-a-share bid Oracle is offering for rival PeopleSoft Inc.
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Oracle has rejected&#160;BEA Systems&#39; proposed purchase price of $21 per share, calling it &quot;impossibly high&quot; for Oracle or any other company to pay.In a letter to BEA&#39;s board dated Oct. 25, Oracle again urged the company to accept its offer of $17 per share, an amount that Oracle said it was &quot;unwilling to increase.&quot;&quot;The $21 per share price is a multiple of nearly eleven times BEA&#39;s last twelve months&#39; reported maintenance revenues,&quot; wrote Oracle President Charles Phillips. &quot;Nobody would seriously consider paying that kind of multiple for a software company with shrinking new license sales.&quot;He noted that Oracle was the only company making an offer for BEA. &quot;Apparently no other companies think that BEA is worth $17 per share, let alone $21 per share,&quot; Philips wrote.Oracle again urged BEA to put its offer to a shareholder vote.&#160;Oracle&#39;s bid of $17 per share&#160;values BEA at about $6.7 billion. A price of $21 per share would value it at $8.3 billion.Oracle said it had an obligation to its own shareholders to &quot;exercise price discipline when evaluating acquisition opportunities.&quot; It reminded BEA of its&#160;deadline of Sunday evening&#160;to accept the offer, after which it will &quot;move on&quot; and consider other acquisitions.Oracle made its surprise bid for BEA on Oct. 12, hoping to strengthen its line of middleware products and grow its customer base. BEA, which had been under pressure from investor Carl Icahn to sell, quickly rejected the offer as too low, and on Thursday came back with its suggested higher price. Oracle&#39;s offer &quot;significantly undervalues BEA&quot; and is not in the best interests of BEA&#39;s shareholders, it said on Thursday.BEA officials weren&#39;t available for comment on Oracle&#39;s latest letter.&#160;
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LONDON -- Enterprise software giant Oracle Corp. may be known for big plans and bold moves but when it comes to capturing the European market the Redwood Shores, California, company has realized it also has to think small.