PeopleSoft brings J.D. Edwards on board

With 88 percent of J.D. Edwards shares in its pocket, PeopleSoft has declared victory in its bid to acquire the company.

PeopleSoft has gobbled up 110 million J.D. Edwards shares and plans to buy the rest by the end of August. For all intents and purposes, this deal is done. PeopleSoft has purchased a fellow enterprise app-making subsidiary for $1.8 billion.

"Today marks an important milestone in the history of PeopleSoft," said PeopleSoft President and CEO Craig Conway, in a statement. "The powerful combination of PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards creates the second largest enterprise applications software company in the world."

That's all well and good, Craig, but there's this nasty old Oracle issue left to deal with. Oracle says it will have PeopleSoft even with the J.D. Edwards baggage.

PeopleSoft worked quickly to close the deal with J.D. Edwards, hoping to keep the hawkish Oracle at bay. The deal was initially scheduled to close in the late third quarter or early fourth quarter.

Oracle made a number of interested parties nervous by saying it had not decided whether or not it would complete the J.D. Edwards acquisition should it take over PeopleSoft.

It would seem that Oracle will have to sweeten its bid for PeopleSoft a bit more now that J.D. Edwards is part of the team. ®

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