Former PeopleSoft workers get a boost - Founder to award grants to some laid off by Oracle

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/2/5 | Benjamin Pimentel

[SmithL]

PeopleSoft Inc. founder Dave Duffield choked back tears in December as he told his employees that the company had agreed to sell to Oracle Corp. after a bitter takeover battle.

Now he is reaching out to those who got hit hardest by his team's failure to fend off the Oracle bid.

Duffield is giving grants of up to $10,000 to ex-PeopleSoft workers who were laid off by Oracle and have had a difficult time finding work.

The grants will be given through Safety Net, a fund that he endowed and that became operational Friday.

"The shock we all felt late last year has diminished somewhat, and I know some of you have found new jobs and are adjusting to new routines," he said in a message posted on the fund's Web site.

"There will be a small number of people who will have difficulty finding jobs," Duffield added. "It's to you that this program, the Safety Net, is dedicated."

To qualify, an applicant must have been a PeopleSoft employee when the Oracle deal was announced on Dec. 13 and must have been laid off on or after Jan. 14 as a result of the takeover.

An applicant's annual salary at the time of dismissal should not have been more than $150,000.

[SmithL]

Duffield is a class act.

[djf]

A good buddy of mine works there. This was somewhat predictable, since Peoplesoft had chosen DB2 as it's preferred DBMS over Oracle.

Oracle got their hides chapped on that one, since the SAP folks had done the same thing a few years back. (I was privvy to advanced notice about that one).

So expect Oracle to try to mod Peoplesoft into their own type of financials, which basically means turn it into crap.

[harpu]

"An applicant's annual salary at the time of dismissal should not have been more than $150,000." Hmmmmm....speaks volumes as to why they were vulnerable to being bought up.

[harpu]

If you're 'flying right along' on $100 to $120k salary, what good is $10,000 going to do ya if you couldn't get your Sh@t together with almost two years notice that the company was going to be merged with another - and jobs eliminated! Duhhhhhh!

[harpu]

oops..."...$100 to $120k salary" make that "...$100 to $150k salary"

[freekitty]

Has anyone seen that new commercial with Bill Gates. He acts like he and Microsoft are the only ones in the computer industry. Ha....All he does is go out and spend a lot of money to keep the competition at bay.

[Cobra64]

I was a JD Edwards Business Analyst and Distribution Consultant for 15 years. When PeopleSoft bought JDE, my only option was to move from NC to CA. I wonder why soft6ware solution providers want to lose 30 years of business expertise, as well as coding, data interfaces, etc.. I guess these folks will hire some pimply-faced high-school kids to back-fill their requirements.

Again, what do I know running $8M projects all over Europe and South America.