Oracle announced Tuesday it completed its
Oracle--which like
In Oracle's case, the enterprise software applications behemoth spent more than three months applying pressure to its rival BEA, before the parties struck a deal with the help of the middleware software maker's largest individual investor, Carl Icahn.
BEA initially
"The addition of BEA will accelerate innovation by bringing together two companies with a common vision of a modern service-oriented architecture infrastructure," Charles Phillips, Oracle's president, said in a statement. "Together, Oracle and BEA will provide a series of complementary and well-engineered middleware products, allowing customers to more easily build, deploy, and manage applications in a secure environment."
With the tech industry closing the chapter on one contentious merger effort that eventually turned "friendly," it waits to see if another will begin with Microsoft going "hostile" with its bid to acquire Yahoo. Microsoft is weighing its options this week.
NetSuite's IPO auction has apparently attracted strong interest from investors, as the company prepares to set the final IPO price after market close Wednesday.
The on-demand enterprise applications company, backed by Oracle's Larry Ellison, has raised its pricing range by 46 percent from its initial pricing range of $13 to $16 a share that was announced on December 5.
The range was raised Tuesday to $16 to $19 per share. And it was raised a second time Wednesday to $19 to $22 a share, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
NetSuite could begin trading as early as Thursday, under the ticker symbol "N" on the New York Stock Exchange.
Investors are apparently eager to snap up the 6.2 million shares that NetSuite is offering. NetSuite could raise as much as $136.4 million, should the initial public offering be priced at the high end of the range.
As the day progresses and the close of the market draws near, it will be interesting to see whether NetSuite again raises the price range before setting the final IPO price. And although, as the company notes, it reserves the right to change the final pricing date, it can't push it back much further given the holiday crunch time that's approaching.
Within the first six months of next year, Oracle plans to trot out the first of its long-awaited Fusion applications.
And if Larry Ellison, Oracle chief executive, has his way, the three Fusion applications will make their debut in the earlier part of that period. As they say in the financial world, he's cautiously optimistic.
Oracle's "Sales Prospector" will be the first to debut, a type of software as a service (SaaS). That will be followed by "Sales References" and "Sales Tools."
"All new applications in 2008 will be Fusion applications. They are built on an industry standard-based middleware and a service-oriented-architecture (SOA)," said Ellison, during his keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld on Wednesday. "That's the primary characteristic of a Fusion app."
The Fusion Sales Prospector application is designed to help companies make better sales forecasts, where Sales References' aim is to help sales representatives sell more products or services with the aid of data mining.
Oracle's Fusion Sales Tools are designed to aid developers.
And when it comes to Oracle's customers, Ellison said they have one thing that's top of mind.
"They're saying, 'My Fusion apps have to coexist with my other applications,'" Ellison said. "That's priority No. 1."
While it cools its heels waiting for a response from BEA Systems, Oracle is moving forward with other acquisitions.
The database and enterprise applications software maker announced Wednesday it plans to snap up Interlace Systems, which develops operational planning software. The deal aims to bolster Oracle's Enterprise Performance Management System by integrating Interlace's software that's designed to help companies re-evaluate scenarios across various functions, change operational assumptions and evaluate the effect on their business.
The deal is expected to close next month, which is in contrast to Oracle's efforts to acquire BEA.
Oracle on Tuesday announced it issued a deadline to BEA. By sundown Sunday, BEA needs to invite Oracle and its $17-a-share buyout bid to the negotiating table. Otherwise, the deal disappears.
And while Oracle would not disclose the financial terms in the Interlace deal, it's looking to lay down $6.7 billion for BEA.
Just yesterday, billionaire investor Carl Icahn pushed his stake in BEA Systems into the double digits to slightly more than 11 percent. And today, he's raising his stake in the company again. This time, Icahn's boosting it to 13.2 percent.
Based on BEA's proxy last year, Icahn's investment would make him and his affiliates the second largest stakeholders in the company, after FMR and its wholly owned subsidiary Fidelity Management & Research, which held a 14.1 percent stake last year.
Although Icahn's bigger stake increases the pressure on BEA to consider his proposal for the company to put itself on the sales block, whether he'll be able to convince other institutional investors sitting at the gold table to side with him has yet to be seen.
Carl Icahn has thrown another log on the fire he's lit under BEA Systems, raising his stake to 9.88 percent in the enterprise applications software maker.
The billionaire shareholder activist, who last week called for the company's sale and raised his stake to 8.5 percent, went on the offensive again Thursday by adding more BEA shares to his holdings.
Icahn and his related entities now own a total of 38.7 million shares. That's a pretty large match to wave around, as he tries to ignite movement on BEA's board to put a "for sale" sign on the company and, potentially, push for his own slate of opposition directors to be elected.
Carl's says his beef with management stems from a need to increase shareholder value. BEA's stock has fallen about 18 percent since its high of nearly $17 a share a year ago.
BEA has long been rumored as a potential buyout target for Oracle and, more recently, speculation has kicked up again over the summer.
The company's investor relations executive, however, said at a recent investor conference that the company has no plans to stick a "for sale" sign on its lawn.
Icahn, given his recent failed efforts to move shareholders into action, as evidenced by the Motorola battle, may want to pray to the fire Gods.
According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, Oracle intends to file its first amended complaint sometime between Sunday and May 18. After it files its amendment, SAP will have 20 days to formally respond to the allegations, the court documents state.
The legal wrangling centers on allegations that TomorrowNow, a supplier of third party support and maintenance, over stepped its bounds when it wooed Oracle's PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards customers to its camp. More specifically, Oracle alleges that TomorrowNow accessed its system and retrieved proprietary information that went beyond what some of its prior customers were entitled to, as part of their support and maintenance contract with Oracle.
Oracle also alleges TomorrowNow, in some cases, accessed its system using its former customers' log-in and password information, even though those customers' contracts had already expired days before.
SAP, meanwhile, said it will aggressively defend itself against the lawsuit. And specifics may become more evident once it files its formal response.
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