Seconds out, round two, as former PeopleSoft CEO lines up against Oracle again
Seconds out, round two, as former PeopleSoft CEO lines up against Oracle again
Oct 10, 2005: Former PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway looks set to square up to his old nemesis, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, after being appointed to the board of CRM software vendor salesforce.com. His appointment is effective immediately, and for a term that expires at the salesforce.com 2008 annual meeting.
Conway is likely to feel a touch of déjà vu in his new role for he joins salesforce.com at a time when it is embroiled in a war of words with Oracle, the company that Conway tried to fend off from acquiring PeopleSoft in a bitter battle which ended with Conway's removal from his post by the PeopleSoft board, a move which many industry observers thought was made in order to facilitate merger talks with Oracle.
Ovum analyst David Bradshaw said the appointment comes at a time when tensions between salesforce.com and Oracle are running high.
"As CEO of PeopleSoft, Conway was a vigorous opponent of the Oracle takeover. Conway was unceremoniously dumped by the PeopleSoft board in October 2004, and I believe this was so that merger talks with Oracle could be opened.
"This appointment comes at a time when the war of words between Oracle and salesforce.com is mounting. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who helped get salesforce.com started as a personal investor, and who was a board member in its early days, is also reported by Reuters as saying he'd gladly see his shares in salesforce.com reduced to zero."
Charles Philips, Oracle co-president, was recently reported as saying that Oracle would "crush" salesforce.com.
Bradshaw reckons that salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff perhaps has only himself to blame for the blow-up between the two companies following some sharp-tongues remarks at a recent salesforce.com event.
"On the day that Oracle's takeover of Siebel was announced, I just happened to be at salesforce.com's user conference. Benioff started out being fairly restrained in his remarks, but then couldn't resist commenting in not too flattering terms on what this was going to mean for Oracle's CRM portfolio."
Despite the antipathy shown towards each other at the present time, there is no reason why Oracle would not take over salesforce.com down the track. After all, there was hardly any love lost between Oracle and PeopleSoft but that didn't stop that merger going ahead. Ovum's Bradshaw, however, doesn't see it happening.
"Obviously, Oracle could try to buy salesforce.com if it really wanted to. Conway has more experience that most in fighting off a predatory acquisition, so he looks a useful person to have on board in that scenario. A successful bid would leave Conway in the position of the bowl of petunias in 'The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy', thinking "Oh no, not again!"
"Having been wrong about the outcome of the legal wrangle over Oracle buying PeopleSoft, I'm not a reliable person to predict the outcome of a bid that hasn't happened yet, but somehow, I just don't see this happening. It would clearly reduce competition in the on-demand CRM market very significantly. But worse, it would make the world a much duller place."
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