Oracle's bid to acquire PeopleSoft, which started out as a raucous street fight, has morphed into a high-stakes chess game between its respective chief executives.
In one of the latest twists in this battle of wits between Oracle's Larry Ellison and PeopleSoft's Craig Conway, PeopleSoft recently extended a customer guarantee programme to snare any unwanted acquirer in a web of costly fees.
It also moved up the deadline for nominating new board members in advance of its June shareholders meeting, thus reducing the amount of time Oracle has to line up sympathetic candidates. Oracle, though, plans to meet that deadline with an alternative slate of directors.
CNET News.com recently caught up with Conway, who explained why he believes Oracle has purposely prolonged an antitrust review of the proposed merger in order to buy itself some time.
Q: What's your understanding of the US Department of Justice's position on the Oracle bid?
A: I don't know much -- only what (Oracle executive vice president) Chuck Phillips says. He's controlling the process. The Justice Department only has 10 days to issue a decision after Oracle finishes submitting information. This process has always been within Oracle's control. But there's no time limit. Chuck can announce with a fair degree of certainty when a decision is coming.
So Oracle's stalling the review? Why would they want to do that?
It's for the same reason that they call you and people like you and say, "We're still fully committed to the PeopleSoft bid." They continue to try to use it as a tactic of uncertainty to harm or interfere with sales to our customers. The good news is that customers aren't buying it. That tactic isn't working very well. It's all in the family of stretching things.
What's happening with your customer assurance programme? Why did you change it and make it stronger after saying Oracle wasn't a big concern anymore?
That (stalling) tactic isn't working very well. It's all in the family of stretching things.
We started that back in June to give customers the confidence that they could proceed with their PeopleSoft purchases. It was set to expire 17 October, at the same time Oracle's bid was to expire. So, we had to have the board re-evaluate it (when Oracle extended its bid). We've revisited it every time Oracle's bid expired. You make adjustments based on things that have happened in the interim.
