BEA shows fighting spirit

A LOT OF PEOPLE still think that Oracle will buy BEA Systems, despite the expiry of its take-it-or-leave-it offer.

However, the middleware giant’s surprisingly good financials announcement suggests that it could stay hale and hearty even without several billions of dollars from under Larry Ellison's mattress to cheer up shareholders.

Profit ($56 million) and revenue ($384 million) were both up sharply for the quarter that ended, spookily enough, on 31 October. But is that enough to stop Larry? At Oracle OpenWorld under the powder-blue skies of San Francisco this week, the man himself said that if Oracle were to come back for BEA it would be at a lower price. BEA CEO Alfred Chuang insists the company is worth $8.2 billion, compared to Oracle’s $6.7 billion bid.

Still, even PeopleSoft caved in the end and enterprise software is consolidating very quickly as the IBM-Cognos deal earlier this week attested, so don’t bet against Oracle finally getting his man. µ