Posted 9:28 AM

Big Blue as White Knight?

An article in ZDNet Australia ("IBM rules out PeopleSoft white knight play") indicates that Big Blue won't be "rescuing" PeopleSoft from the "evil clutches" of Larry Ellison by making a friendly offer to buy the Pleasanton, CA applications company. Steve Mills, the senior vice-president and group executive of IBM's Software Group, is quoted as saying: "We're not in the applications business..."

Two things wrong with that, Steve. First, that's why the PeopleSoft customers want you to buy the company (as opposed to Oracle), thinking you'll keep the applications available! And second, IBM's been in the applications business longer than anyone else in the computing industry! That's why the IBM website has a page called "Applications - Desktop & Enterprise"!!!

Looks like Steve needs to spend more time learning what his department really does.