Oracle Acquires Peoplesoft

Oracle Corp. finally scooped up bitter rival PeopleSoft Inc. after 18
months of legal and verbal strife, ending a nasty feud with a $10.3
billion deal that promises to shake up the business software industry.

Oracle sealed the agreement, which was announced Monday, by upping its all-cash offer by 10 percent to $26.50 per share.

The
final offer represents a 75 percent premium from PeopleSoft's market
value before Oracle launched the takeover battle in June 2003.

"A
lot of people compared us to Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but
finally we now have PeopleSoft," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said during
an interview Monday. "Clearly, it's a great feeling. It's not that I
wanted to win just for the sake of winning. It's the fact that
PeopleSoft is instrumental to our strategy."