Opening Oracle’s OpenWorld in San Francisco, California, Phillips promised jobs for PeopleSoft developers and continuation of two separate Oracle and PeopleSoft product lines.
Philips said Oracle already has plans for PeopleSoft’s products in its own portfolio, including the year-old Data Hubs line, which will be expanded, while over time PeopleSoft features would be re-implemented on Oracle.
Customers can plan on two separate tracks. If you want to stay on the PeopleSoft track you can do that. We are not going to try to merge with some superset product, Phillips said.
Phillips’ words follow an AMR Research survey of 150 PeopeSoft customers published last month that found more than half have low expectations Oracle will continue to enhance their products and are willing to move to third-party support to save money. 63% are ready to move to stop paying maintenance fees.
AMR noted that, should Oracle succeed in its bid, the company faces what the analyst called a significant sales job to convince customers they should remain with Oracle.
Phillips dismissed AMR’s findings, saying customers recognized the proposed merger is a fact of business life and senior executives are not going to make a knee jerk reaction and throw out applications just because they don’t like Oracle.
Instead, according to Phillips, PeopleSoft customers will find their applications are enhanced as a greater number of staff are deployed in support. We will take resources and focus them on existing applications that people get value from, Phillips said.
Commenting on the potential for post-acquisition job losses among PeopleSoft’s developers, Phillips said, We need developers to develop products. Oracle is a great company for developers – the culture is oriented to developers.
Throughout a 45 minute question and answer with press at OpenWorld, Phillips repeatedly made references not to if Oracle would be successful in its PeopleSoft bid, but when Oracle buys the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) rival.
Despite Phillips’ confidence, the outcome of the proposed acquisition is uncertain a fact even Phillips could not escape. With the next legal chapter scheduled for December 13 and 14, Phillips told press: This is a very unusual event. There’s no play book you can look to.
