Antitrust News: Update
Microsoft's announcement that it had held merger talks with SAP is sure to affect the Justice Department's antitrust suit against Oracle over their proposed takeover of PeopleSoft. It appears to bolster Oracle's argument, but I'm not so sure. For one thing, they began their talks shortly after Oracle made their initial bid against PeopleSoft, which seems to me they were looking to pre-empt Ellison's bid for dominance in the market. It also suggests that Microsoft is a long way from entering this area of the business software market, which makes them much less of a competitive force in that area than Oracle would have us believe. My own opinion is that Oracle, SAP, and PeopleSoft are the only players out there at the high end of the business. For small to medium-sized companies and regional markets there are other products, but those aren't the ones these 3 play to normally. Of course, because the U.S. Federal government already uses PeopleSoft, as do some State governments, there's more than one reason to block the takeover.