Peoplesoft to acquire J.D. Edwards! Wait; scratch that, Oracle is acquiring PeopleSoft through a hostile takeover! Oracle CEO Larry Ellison plans to shelve PeopleSoft after the deal is finalized! What happens to J.D. Edwards?
These are some of the crazy headlines that transpired after what looked
to be the most significant merger in the IT industry this year.
The PeopleSoft/J.D. Edwards/ Oracle story may not have been as big in terms of dollars as the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger in 2002, but in terms of creating sparks of controversy it was right up there.
Lost in all this mess is Andy Aicklen, PeopleSoft Canada’s vice-president and managing director.
It was Aicklen’s job to ensure a smooth transition of both firms in Canada and to make sure J.D. Edwards customers remained satisfied. PeopleSoft has 682 customers in Canada and only 14 are common with J.D. Edwards.
Not that hard a task, if only Ellison would get out of the way.
Aicklen’s plan was to have organizational integration completed in 90 days, promising customers and partners would know who their account executive is by then.
He also managed to show customers what the combined product set would look like.
Under the new organization, the three product families will include PeopleSoft Enterprise, an upmarket product for service-intensive industries; Enterprise One for current J.D. Edwards customers that are asset-intensive companies; and PeopleSoft World for use with the IBM iSeries platform.
Aicklen also said combining the product lines of PeopleSoft 8 and J.D. Edwards 5 will mean more solutions for all customers.
“”It’s a growth play in terms of taking customers living in different worlds and bringing them together,”” he added.