Oracle-PeopleSoft merger may harm partners

If Oracle succeeds in its hostile $US5.1 billion bid to acquire PeopleSoft, the deal could have a ripple effect on vendor partners.

BEA Systems, for one, has PeopleSoft as a customer for BEA's WebLogic Server application server and Tuxedo transaction monitor, noted Scott Dietzen, CTO at BEA, in an interview at the JavaOne conference yesterday.

"(The proposed acquisition) is an indirect concern in that PeopleSoft is a major customer and Oracle (intends to be) a major competitor" of BEA, with its own application server product, Dietzen said.

"We'd have a vested interest in that not going through," although BEA has no control over the situation, Dietzen said.

PeopleSoft has rejected Oracle's $US5.1 billion offer to be acquired. The per-share price would be $US16.

In July, the company also plans to ship WebLogic Platform 8.1, the latest version of the company's applications platform. Included in the suite will be WebLogic Integration 8.1, that will feature Process Definition for Java (PDJ), Dietzen said.

PDJ will enable implementing of the BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web services) business process orchestration.

It is Java-based rather than an XML programming-specific such as BPEL, Dietzen said.

"It's not clear we need a native BPEL execution engine in the server," he said. "(PDJ) is a very high-level model for defining a business process."

Through PDJ, users can define workflows in applications such as an order processing, he said.

PDJ is the subject of Java Specification Request (JSR) 207, for consideration as a standard within Java.