Oracles new best friend

 
 
By Lisa Vaas  |  Posted 2004-04-29 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Think about it: ACT has been one of the loudest proponents of Oracles PeopleSoft takeover. At the beginning of April, ACT demanded that the state of Michigan and the Department of Justice immediately withdraw their lawsuit against Oracle, based on the fact that both entities purchased enterprise software from companies other than the three named in the case—Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP—as being the only three enterprise-software providers worth considering.
Click here for commentary on why the DOJ and Michigan arent necessarily hypocrites for buying software sold by vendors other than SAP-PeopleSoft-Oracle.
On top of that, back in February, ACT President Jonathan Zuck issued a statement saying that "The Department of Justice should rethink its decision to block the merger of Oracle and PeopleSoft. The market for enterprise applications is both fluid and extremely competitive. Allowing Oracle and PeopleSoft to merge will enable the combined company to invest more in the research and development necessary to create better products at better prices. Using contrived market definitions such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relations Management (CRM) or Human Resources (HR) and Financial Management Systems (FMS) can hide the depth of competition in this market." Just as ACT went to the mat to defend Microsoft against antitrust legislation, its now doing the same for Oracle. Was it hypocritical of Oracle to turn from trash-picking ACT to joining it and praising it to the skies? Sure, on the face of it, it was. Was it smart of Oracle to team up with one of the loudest critics of the governments antitrust witch trials? It sure was. And if there are two things you cant say about Larry Ellison, they are these: 1) that he is not a smart man; and 2) that he is inflexible. Joining ACT is an easy one to swallow. The day I see Larry Ellison on a stage with Bill Gate, that will be when I suspect that gravity has reversed its pull and water is flowing down sinks in directions hitherto unseen in the Northern Hemisphere. Until then, hypocrisy is just another way to say "good business sense." Tell me your thoughts either by registering for TalkBack and posting your comments below or by mailing me at lisa_vaas@comcast.net. eWEEK.com Database Center Editor Lisa Vaas has written about enterprise applications since 1997. Check out eWEEK.coms Database Center at http://database.eweek.com for the latest database news, views and analysis. Be sure to add our eWEEK.com database news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page:  


 
 
 
 
Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.
 
 
 
 
 
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