Changes in the offing?

Here’s an article from the NYTimes about Oracle’s buy-out of PeopleSoft. It suggests that consolidation is happening because there are too many software companies. What happens is that the big ones buy the more vulnerable ones, extract a little technology, and, over the long run, induce the customers of the swallowed company to switch over to the products of the victor. Normally I wouldn’t pay too much attention to this, but the article suggests that a number of other companies are tempting targets for acquisition, among them a couple of names very familiar to us in ACS.

Companies that could be tempting candidates for takeovers, analysts say, include business software makers smaller than PeopleSoft, including Siebel Systems, Lawson and Sage. Another is BEA Systems, which makes Web-based server software and tools.