The Day the Universe Changed
Posted On: 12/15/2006

Years ago, there was a PBS series called The Day the Universe Changed by James Burke. Each show was about a single technical innovation, and the long-reaching (and sometimes unintended) consequences of the invention. I'm an engineer, so I was enthralled with the show and its conclusions: with one single invention, I could impact people's lives for generations to come! Awesome. Scary.

I've spent the last several weeks pondering the long-term consequences of the Oracle buy-out of PeopleSoft. I doubt that it rises to the Universe-Changes level. Objectively, it's probably no more than a consolidation that happens in every market as it matures. So, as a customer and a service-provider, I don't think my universe has changed. No, I suspect the Universe that has changed is Oracle's.

For example, just look at the changes that occurred during the acquisition process. Initially, Oracle announced that they were buying PeopleSoft to shut it down. Now, there's a commitment to not only support previous releases of PeopleSoft in the future, but also release planned versions too (8.9 and 9.0). Why did this change? Was it simply a blood feud between Larry and Craig? The dynamic of the feud did change when Craig left and Dave came back. I suspect it was much, much more than that.

I spent a number of years working at a terrific client. Midway through my engagement, they were acquired by a competitor, though the acquisition was friendly. The new combined management knew that, to realize the benefits of the merger, they needed to eliminate duplicate IT systems. So, they did something I had never seen before: they did a “bake-off”. The put the systems of the heritage companies into a competition, and chose the best one. Of course, the IT staff at the acquiring company expected that this was a formality, and that all of their systems would win the blue ribbons. In fact, a surprisingly small number did. For the most part, the systems of the acquired company were chosen. To me, this was natural, because I had designed one of them! But in retrospect, that was probably one of the significant assets of the acquired company – its excellent PeopleSoft-based systems.

Let's face it: Oracle is one of those NIH shops. Not Invented Here. Anything created anywhere else is, well, crap. Anyone who has worked at Oracle and been forced to use their email system knows what I'm talking about. That's the mindset they took into the buy-out. “We're buying PeopleSoft to get their customers. We couldn't get those customers during the sales cycle, so we'll just buy the whole company. Those companies that chose PeopleSoft over Oracle Financials made a mistake. PeopleSoft can't be better, because it wasn't invented here.”

I suspect that, with the passage of time, and some careful looks at PeopleSoft's product's and technology, Oracle's mind-set has changed. They now realize that they've bought something pretty incredible. I'm not sure exactly which day Oracle's Universe changed, but it was well before January 18.

Of course, time will tell. But I predict that both PeopleSoft and Oracle customers can look forward to some pretty exciting developments in the future. And, because customers never do what they're supposed to when they buy ERP software (change their business to match the software), it will continue to be hog-heaven for us consultants.