In this highly competitive market, there is no need to fear the merger of Oracle and PeopleSoft.
The company has long been good at this with retailers, but how will it do with Oracle and Peoplesoft?
But it requires only a slightly broader definition to reveal a market that would remain competitive even after an Oracle-PeopleSoft merger.
The outcome of the trial will be watched with interest in the European Union, where regulators have listed a number of objections to the Oracle-Peoplesoft merger.
Those 5, 000 job cuts fell equally between Oracle and PeopleSoft.
The Justice Department told the court that the Oracle-Peoplesoft merger would eliminate one of only three big suppliers of auditing and human resources software in the US, hampering competition.
After Oracle acquired rival PeopleSoft in December 2004, SAP moved fast to begin luring PeopleSoft customers away.
Oracle had also threatened to force every PeopleSoft customer to move to Oracle, a threat Ellison backed away from later.
His extensive experience includes previous executive positions at Oracle, Taleo, PeopleSoft and Price Waterhouse.
Along with SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle form the triumvirate in a market for corporate enterprise software that hasn't been expanding.
Last month Anthony Scott, the chief technology officer for General Motors, had executives from Oracle, Microsoft, PeopleSoft and other software houses in for a reaming.
More than 3, 000 universities and schools in 70 countries use Blackboard's software to put content online, said Matthew Pittinsky, chairman of Blackboard, whose industry partners include Oracle, Microsoft and PeopleSoft.
Yet the Department of Justice creatively defined that market segment as consisting of only three players and then used it as a basis to try to block Oracle's takeover of PeopleSoft.
The App is only available for use in San Ramon right now but thanks to the help of a Bay Area billionaire, who reluctantly sold his company, PeopleSoft, to Oracle in 2004, and now is the founder and CEO of enterprise software firm WorkDay, fire stations across the country will be able to customize it for their areas.
And indeed the company has been admirably busy partnering with bigwig application vendors like PeopleSoft, SAP and Oracle.
PeopleSoft was bought by Oracle in December 2004, and, somewhat unsurprisingly, SAP snapped up TomorrowNow about a month later.
Oracle's suit alleges that PeopleSoft has abused its takeover defences to entrench incumbent managers and directors at the expense of the firm's shareholders.
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Gregoire has also served at PeopleSoft, also acquired by Oracle, and EDS, which was bought by Hewlett-Packard.
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And Workday's co-CEOs are Aneel Bhusri and Dave Duffield, who used to run software maker PeopleSoft, also bought by Oracle.
Oracle spent 18 months in pursuit of PeopleSoft, prevailing over the objection of the U.S. government and pressing the PeopleSoft board into firing Ellison's old charge Craig Conway.
Lots of SAP customers are now Oracle customers because they were running Siebel or PeopleSoft.
"If you take Peoplesoft out of the picture, Oracle's ability to raise prices will be enhanced, " DoJ lawyer Claude Scott said.
Nelson's belief in NetSuite's Web approach flies contrary to what Oracle has done in cobbling together software from PeopleSoft, Siebel and others.
The Microsoft-SAP revelations are the latest twist in Oracle's year-old attempt to acquire Peoplesoft, now ranked as one of the most bitterly fought takeover battles of recent years.
"PeopleSoft is still clearly an attractive asset for Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ), " it said.
You see, Oracle won a bitter hostile bid against their former company, PeopleSoft.
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The revelation came on the first day of a court hearing into the US Department of Justice's attempt to block Oracle's long-running bid to buy smaller rival Peoplesoft.
PeopleSoft has done this in two ways, argues Oracle.
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But Oracle upped its offer in December, and it was so high Peoplesoft's board couldn't refuse.
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