Oracle Sets Deadline for BEA to Accept Its Takeover Bid
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With no other suitors stepping forward, Oracle has threatening to abandon its $6.7 billion bid for BEA Systems unless its smaller rival accepts the offer by Sunday.
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Users of technology from both companies today expressed concern about Oracle's $8.5 billion agreement to buy BEA Systems and to fold in the latter's middleware to the Oracle software stack.The BEA board of director's vote to approve the sale for $19.375 a share comes just three months after it spurned Oracle's $6.7 billion offer in October to buy the middleware vendor.Burc Oral, a senior architect at Cambridge, Mass.-based government contractor Cell Exchange, said that while the acquisition will give users the option of buying a database and application server from a single vendor, he also expects a period of "confusion" for BEA users because of technology overlap.Oral, who also heads up the New England BEA User Group, said that he expects that the deal will likely mean the end of some products -- "a little from Oracle and a lot from BEA."Oral said that Oracle would be well served to retain BEA's WebLogic product, which has a hearty following among users, who have been provided with good support from BEA over the years. "[BEA] had their [WebLogic] product out there many years before Oracle was out there," Oral said. "[It] is very easy to use and BEA has always been very friendly to the user community with downloads and documentation. Oracle doesn't have this wide acceptance from the user community in terms of applications. With BEA life is a lot easier."But, he noted that since Oracle made its first bid for BEA in October, the middleware firm has been less responsive than usual to the user group. In addition, Oral said that users from previous Oracle acquisitions including Siebel and Hyperion appear to be "getting better value" from a larger organization that they did before the acquisition.Jim Burgard, assistant vice chancellor of university computing and communication at the University of New Orleans, said that he doesn't expect the deal to significantly impact his organization, which uses WebLogic with Oracle's PeopleSoft applications. However, he added that he "does have some concerns about future licensing and maintenance costs now that all the components are owned by one vendor."Mike Gilpin, an analyst with Forrester Research, said that Burgard's fear is not unfounded, noting that there is a chance that support costs for users of BEA's WebLogic Server, AquaLogic Service Bus, AquaLogic BPM, WebLogic Event Server, and AquaLogic SOA Management products will grow after the deal closes later this year.Gilpin did note that Oracle has promised "lifetime support" for BEA products that overlap Oracle's offerings. That means that BEA users won't have to dump their BEA products but may over time pay more for support, he said. If they do move to Oracle's technology, they'll have to pay for migration, Gilpin added."Oracle has assured us that they will be very mindful of protecting the interests of existing BEA customers, just as they have been for customers of PeopleSoft and Siebel -- and I find their assurances credible," Gilpin said "It's not in Oracle's interest to aggravate these customers, In many cases they are already Oracle customers, anyway."Todd Langille, project manager of Administrative Computing for Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., said that he has concerns over whether Oracle has a "clear coherent strategy" for its growing software portfolio, which includes many similar products.For example, he noted that Oracle bought business intelligence software vendors Hyperion and Siebel despite have its own BI tool set, Discover. "I take a look at that mix of acquisitions, and I'm not really sure what their data warehouse strategy will be with all their business intelligence products in play," he remarked.Langille did note that because Dartmouth runs both Oracle Application Server and BEA's WebLogic software, it's not as important to him which product becomes the database vendor's primary middleware offering. "We see [the acquisition] as probably a knocking down of competition, but given that we use both products, we stand to benefit from whatever intellectual properly Oracle [gains]," he added.BEA should expedite Oracle's efforts to construct a standards-based middleware architecture, Langille said. However, he acknowledged that it will take some time before any wholesale replacement for Oracle Application Server arrives."I don't think products are identical, and for that reason, I don't think one will disappear quickly," he added.Patricia Dues, enterprise program manager for the city of Las Vegas, said she hopes Oracle can use BEA technology to improve its various offerings. For example, she said she hopes software acquired from BEA can augment the analytical capability of Oracle's Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition offering recently purchased by the city."We realize what Oracle has done with other acquisitions in taking the best of both worlds. There's always room for improvement, and this sparks our interest with the acquisition of BEA," said Dues.Dues downplayed any concerns that Oracle's ongoing attrition of its software competitors - both large and small - may divert the company's focus away from existing customers or product roadmaps. "I don't see this as what Larry [Ellison] wants. I think there's a strategy behind it all. I can't say that I feel like [Oracle] is going to desert us, they have too many products to manage," she said.
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BEA Systems&#39; board of directors has named an acquisition price to competitor and suitor Oracle: $21 a share, $4 more than Oracle&#39;s initial offer.&quot;We continue to believe that&#160;Oracle&#39;s unsolicited proposal to acquire BEA&#160;at $17.00 per share significantly&#160;undervalues BEA, and is therefore not in the best interests of BEA shareholders,&quot; the company said in a statement Thursday.Oracle on Tuesday set a deadline&#160;of Sunday for BEA to accept its &quot;generous&quot; original bid, which totals about $6.7 billion. The company also indicated it had no interest in a protracted merger battle.But BEA declared Thursday that the company&#39;s existing assets and future business prospects dictate a significantly higher sale price. The company said it has customers for its array of enterprise software among 75 percent of the Fortune Global 500, along with $1 billion in cash reserves and no debt.BEA said it arrived at the $21-per-share figure after talking to its financial advisor, Goldman Sachs. The company said it has authorized its attorneys to give a draft merger agreement to third parties willing to meet the price. The agreement would &quot;provide for an appropriately high degree of certainty of closing,&quot; BEA said.A successful purchase of BEA would significantly increase Oracle&#39;s standing in the middleware space. While some BEA assets would help round out Oracle&#39;s offerings, the companies overlap in key categories like Web servers and ESB (enterprise service bus) products.
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BEA Systems Inc  shares fell 4  percent on Tuesday on concerns a $6.7 billion takeover bid by  Oracle Corp  will fall through after both sides refused  to budge from their positions.
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At an asking price of nearly $8 billion, BEA Systems was finally talked into an Oracle buyout. But with Oracle's long history of software buyouts, will it cut BEA -- and its many business customers -- enough slack?
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Oracle Corp  on Wednesday won a three-month-long campaign to buy BEA Systems Inc  by raising its bid for the business software maker by 14 percent to $8.5 billion.
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BEA Systems Inc  said on Thursday it is willing to sell itself for $8.2 billion, but the price was rejected as "impossibly high" by Oracle Corp , the only company that has publicly expressed interest in the software maker.
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Oracle continues to snap up smaller software companies even while it battles to acquire middleware vendor BEA. On Wednesday Oracle said it had agreed to buy Interlace Systems, which makes operations planning software, for an undisclosed price.Interlace sells software that pulls together data from different sources and allows companies to run &quot;what if&quot; scenarios on the data to determine the outcome of changes they make.Its Integrated Business Planning product has been aimed mainly at manufacturing companies. Customers include Seagate Technologies, the disk drive maker, and Eaton, which makes electrical systems and power systems.Oracle said it would integrate the software with its Enterprise Performance Management System, including the&#160;Hyperion software it bought earlier this year, to give customers better financial and operational planning tools. It won&#39;t discuss a timeline for integration until the merger closes, which is expected to happen next month.Oracle will also continue to offer Interlace&#39;s products on a standalone basis and continue to work with databases and application servers from other vendors, including Microsoft&#39;s SQL Server, IBM&#39;s WebSphere, and SAP&#39;s NetWeaver, according to an FAQ on Oracle&#39;s Web site.Oracle said it would retain Interlace staff with &quot;significant domain expertise&quot; in its products.Interlace is the 10th acquisition Oracle has announced this year and the 36th since 2005. The company said it has become fast and efficient at integrating them all, with specially assigned staff and &quot;proven templates and processes for repeatable success in integration.&quot;On Oct. 12,&#160;Oracle offered $6.7 billion to buy middleware vendor BEA.&#160;BEA called the offer too low, but Oracle on Tuesday said it was a &quot;generous&quot; offer and&#160;gave BEA until Sunday to accept.
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 29 -- After shooing away Oracle's $6.7 billion takeover bid, BEA Systems dug in its heels for a potentially disruptive battle with its largest shareholder, activist investor Carl C. Icahn.
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BEA Systems replied Monday to investor Carl Icahn&#39;s demand for a shareholder vote on purchase bids for the company.&quot;The Board and management of BEA Systems are not opposed to an acquisition of the company. In fact, we are currently exploring ways to maximize shareholder value, including the possible sale of the company,&quot; the statement reads in part.The board goes on to repeat its argument that Oracle&#39;s US$17 per share offer, which expired Sunday, was too low. BEA has asked for $21 per share but received no takers to date, or indeed any other public bids at all. Oracle&#39;s offer was worth $6.7 billion, as opposed to the approximately $8.3 billion BEA&#39;s asking price would command.BEA emphasized that it is open to being acquired. &quot;It is important that there be no misunderstanding of the Board&#39;s position. We are opposed to selling the company at $17.00 per share. We are not opposed to selling the company.&quot;Icahn is BEA&#39;s largest shareholder. He said in a statement Friday that he had filed suit in Delaware to force a shareholder meeting. The investor wants BEA&#39;s board to hold an auction sale, at which shareholders could consider offers from the highest bidder.To that end, Oracle did not rule out further bids in a statement released Sunday: &quot;The BEA shareholders should not assume that Oracle will renew its $17 per share offer in the future. Over time many things can change: BEA&#39;s business might materially weaken, the stock market can fall further from its recent record highs, or Oracle may have committed its capital elsewhere.&quot;BEA users have speculated over what might happen to the company&#39;s middleware technologies, should a sale to Oracle or another party go through.BEA&#39;s stock was trading at about $16.70 per share midday Monday.
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'This will hurt you more than it hurts me' Oracle let its $17 per share offer for BEA lapse yesterday, but activist investor Carl Icahn has demanded the middleware firm put the offer to shareholders anyway.â¦
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Oracle  withdrew its $6.7 billion bid for business software maker BEA Systems  on Sunday, setting the stage for a proxy battle between activist investor Carl Icahn and the BEA board.
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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.
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 26  Â The business software maker BEA Systems signaled its intent to let Oracleâs $6.7 billion takeover bid expire Sunday, setting the stage for a showdown with its largest shareholder, the billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn.
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US business software giant Oracle said Wednesday it had reached an agreement to take over rival BEA Systems in a 8.5 billion dollar deal.
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Business software maker BEA Systems has agreed to be acquired by Oracle Corp for $8.5 billion, ending a long negotiation over the value of the company.
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The board of BEA Systems Inc  said on Monday that it is still looking at ways to maximize shareholder value, including the possible sale of the company, after a bid from Oracle Corp  expired on Sunday.