Oracle Slams PeopleSoft by comparing it to…
At the DoJ trial against Oracle, the government introduced into evidence an Oracle sales training presentation on how to compete against PeopleSoft:
“PeopleSoft has no magical product, they have bugs, product deficiencies, demo disasters, resource and morale issues, account losses, and horror stories in the press to deal with,” the presentation said. “Just like we do.”
That’s from a San Jose Mercury News article on the trial, which has been also revealing how deeply the major software vendors will discount a deal when they really want the win.
A Wall Street Journal article (subscription required) has a lot more about the cutthroat tactics that have been revealed so far in the trial.
PeopleSoft Reveals Whitepaper…
Here’s is another interesting item. PeopleSoft has publicly released a white paper that it previously submitted in response to a DoJ request earlier this year. Since this document, which PeopleSoft originally considered highly confidential, has been referred to in the DoJ’s antitrust lawsuit against Oracle, PeopleSoft has now decided it can be made public.
On his blog, Gary Reback, an antitrust lawyer for PeopleSoft, introduces the white paper, in part, as follows:
The white paper begins by quoting from an internal Oracle email about how “proud” the Oracle executive was when they first announced the tender offer, because they had “certainly wounded” PeopleSoft. The first part of the white paper goes on to explain our belief that Oracle is using the hostile takeover process to hurt a competitor that they are having trouble competing against. The white paper quotes speeches made by the Oracle CEO, as well as hard questions industry analysts have asked Oracle, and customer complaints about Oracle.
In addition, the white paper gives many details of deals where Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, Lawson, or Microsoft have been in head-to-head competition. If you work in the enterprise systems business, you ought to take a look at it.
The PeopleSoft white paper is on the NASDAQ website.
June 2004