Another big software company – BEA – is being consumed by Oracle today . While some people will say this goes back three months to the first offer Oracle made for BEA, the idea has been floating around for a long time. I quickly found a priceless article about it online in Linux World from 3/16/04 (republished on Java.net).
Facing almost certain defeat in its pursuit of PeopleSoft, Oracle is eyeing other candidates and possibly BEA*. “Faced with a tough, if not losing, battle for PeopleSoft, Oracle executives said Thursday that they were considering other acquisitions… Henley (CFO, Chairman) said Oracle had been ‘looking at a variety of areas’ but didn’t identify any potential takeover targets. It has expressed interest in BEA as well as reserve over the price.*
“Facing almost certain defeat” eh? Oracle apparently does not subscribe to the thesis that failure is an option.