Major Deal in the Offing for Oracle?

The much-publicized civil antitrust case filed by the Justice Department against Oracle in its bid to takeover rival Peoplesoft came to a close recently in a San Francisco federal courtroom. A decision is expected in the next few weeks. The trial has had its newsworthy moments including the revelation that Microsoft had been secretly negotiating with SAP for entry into the same market space, a revelation that sent ripples through the global equities markets. And to add drama to the proceedings, the courtroom battle included a backdrop of personal feuding (Craig Conway, founder and CEO of Peoplesoft, was once a direct report to Larry Ellison at Oracle) and intense regional competition (the City of Pleasanton and its 8,000+ Peoplesoft employees versus the City of Redwood City and its 30,000+ Oracle employees and hordes of partner companies). The case has also been noteworthy for another reason, corporate weblogging. Gary Reback, legal counsel at Peoplesoft and a very well-known lawyer in Silicon Valley, has been sitting in on the trial and has been blogging about the case to Peoplesoft's employees and investors (link here). This is one of the first known cases of a corporation using (and sponsoring) weblogging to further its interests. God help us. Weblog as PR and marketing tool? This morning, Oracle announced the hiring of Harold You as Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Jeff Henley, who served in that role for more than thirteen years and was recently promoted to Chairman of the Board. Interesting development, not just because You is Korean-American, but because his primary expertise is in investment banking, having served in senior corporate finance positions at Morgan Stanley, Salomon, and Lehman. His most recent position was as CFO of Accenture (Andersen Consulting), but it's his i-banking experience that Ellison is probably tapping now that the government's antitrust case is over. Whether that means a renewed deal for Peoplesoft or bids for other takeover candidates has yet to be seen. But it's clearly no accident Ellison hired a former i-banker as financial right-hand man the week after the end of the antitrust trial.