Oracle appears to be putting its money where its mouth is after sealing its merger with PeopleSoft last week--acting quickly to reassure uncertain new customers of its good intentions.
The very day the companies announced their $10 billion marriage, Oracle President Charles Phillips called the heads of numerous PeopleSoft customer organizations. His mission: to smooth out strained relations resulting from an 18-month hostile takeover struggle.
Among the groups Phillips spoke with was Quest International Users Group, an 8,000-member support organization for customers of J.D. Edwards, a software company PeopleSoft acquired last year that initially opposed the Oracle buyout. Quest President Fred Pond said that while he was heartened by Phillips' call, the group's members remain wary of the merger.
"We weren't looking for multiple mergers or transitions," Pond said. "These are the cards that are dealt to us, so we're going to step up like we did 18 months ago (with PeopleSoft)."
Quest's members are particularly apprehensive about the Oracle merger because of what Pond characterized as poor treatment from PeopleSoft after the J.D. Edwards buyout. Looking to streamline its user group activities, PeopleSoft pulled its speakers from Quest's annual conference following a disagreement over the terms of its participation in the event. That left Quest, whose members represent 2,000 different businesses, feeling snubbed.
It appears that Oracle wants to avoid making similar public-relations gaffes. Along with calls to customer group leaders, the company sent them a memo outlining its support plans, organized in eight neat bullet points.
Among the bullets: Oracle will ensure that customers experience very little disruption as a result of the merger; Oracle will work with database rivals IBM and Microsoft to provide support to PeopleSoft customers "as long as working relationships can be maintained"; and Oracle will make upgrades to next-generation products "as straightforward as possible."
In the memo, Oracle also said PeopleSoft customers that wish to migrate to Oracle's applications and database products can do so free of licensing charges. "This will also include the equivalent underlying database licenses that are required to run the product, if the customer was using an alternative database for the PeopleSoft applications," Oracle said in the memo.
That offer is making IBM and Microsoft, who sell databases and other technical infrastructure to many PeopleSoft customers, more than a little nervous. In fact, Microsoft is fighting back with its own letter campaign, encouraging the customers to buy more Microsoft products.
Join the conversation
Comment replyThe posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use.
Chamtech's spray-on antenna uses a nano material to provide a low-power boost to antenna range. The wireless-in-a-can product may some day bring an end to unsightly cell towers.
Whether Apple will release a new iPad next month doesn't seem to be the question as much as what day it will happen. A new rumor has it down to the day.
Tommy Jordan, the man who shot his daughter's laptop for YouTube, gets a visit from police and child protection services. Oh, and Good Morning America.
Along with green-lighting Google's buy of Motorola, the Justice Department today OKs an Apple-Microsoft-RIM partnership deal to buy Nortel patents, and Apple's plan to acquire Novell patents.
EnerG2 opens a plant to make an engineered carbon that will improve performance of energy storage devices and make storage for start-stop hybrid cars less expensive.
"Never Stop Playing" campaign for upcoming portable marks Sony's largest platform launch marketing spend, with ads to reach YouTube, Facebook, TV, and billboards in major cities.
As UC Berkeley students, the co-founders of "Back to the Roots" discovered they could grow mushrooms using recycled coffee grounds. Now their mushroom kit sells at grocery stores across the country.
Join the conversation