LawsonGuru Blog

OK, I’m neither a financial whiz nor a stock prognosticator, so I’m the wrong person to ask! But I’ve been asked for my thoughts on the Peoplesoft, J.D.Edwards, Oracle takeover shakeout.
I think the Oracle bid for Peoplesoft is still WAY TOO LOW, and Oracle will have to go up to $25-30/share to convince the shareholders. Assuming Oracle does end up buying Peoplesoft, I’m sure they’ll nix the JDE deal. Which demotes JDE to the second tier of ERP vendors–well under SAP and Oracle/PSFT.  In the long run, this may be good news for Lawson and JDE in some respects.

Should Oracle buy Peoplesoft, they’ll likely kill the Peoplesoft brand, and force the clients to migrate to Oracle or perhaps buy other ERPs. Nothing kills a client relationship faster than an acquisition by an obnoxious vendor! And, without PeopleSoft, who better to go to for a trusted HR solution than Lawson?

And, if JDE is left limping alone, how about a merger with Lawson? I don’t think either has the cash to acquire the other, so a stock swap may be a possibility. Both companies operate in some distinctly different vertical markets, and complement each other in that way. However, their technologies are so different, they’d probably never be able to truly merge.