The Plot Gets Too Thick

August 18, 2003. The suits and counter-suits and threats and accusations were flying so fast and furious nobody could keep up with it. So far, PeopleSoft has successfully purchased JD Edwards, so they are finally gone, unless Oracle buys PeopleSoft and divests JD Edwards. So, perhaps JD Edwards is finally gone, but you can't count on it yet. Oracle still claims they are serious about acquiring PeopleSoft, but we're beginning to doubt their resolve. In any case, if your firm is using JD Edwards software, or PeopleSoft, for that matter, better start saving up for a replacement. Come to think of it, if your company is using any of these ERP systems, you'll never be in the black long enough to save any money.

The Plot Gets Even Thicker

June 14, 2003. The JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Oracle soap opera is spinning out of control. Since our last report, PeopleSoft sued Oracle, then cancelled the lawsuit. Then PeopleSoft considered Oracle's $16 per share offer and rejected it. Then JD Edwards sued Oracle for $1.7 for screwing up the PeopleSoft deal, while insisting that the deal would still go through. Meanwhile, the name-calling continued unabated on all sides. What is going on?

The Plot Thickens - Is JD Edwards Back?

June 9, 2003. The PeopleSoft-JD Edwards "merger" may not happen after all, possible sabotaged by a hostile takeover of PeopleSoft by Oracle...

JD Edwards Finally Gone?

June 3, 2003. The Denver software giant named after a non-existent person, is finally gone, the victim of management's inability to devise a successful management strategy when the going got tough. Of course, those same managers will be the recipients of multimillion dollar windfalls in the transaction, whereby JDE will become the wholly-owned subsidiary of one of their bitter competitors, PeopleSoft, Inc., in a 1.7 billion dollar stock transaction.

Speaking from a personal perspective, I have come in contact with JD Edwards numerous times in the past 15 years, on behalf of clients who where JDE customers. Of these dozens of encounters, I wouldn't characterize a single one as positive. Even though the companies I worked with were paying hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to JDE, they were treated poorly, and technical support was virtually nonexistent. Perhaps that explains why JD Edwards will no longer exist by the end of 2003.

802.11g - Wireless For the Masses

Wireless computing, which for most people simply means having the ability to take their laptop computers from room-to room, is about to take a sharp turn into the mainstream.

Nothing up their (cable) sleeves...

AT&T Sleight of Hand - or - The Magic of AT&T Broadband

January 2, 2002. One day last month, AT&T pulled off one of the largest disappearing acts in history. They made the Internet and email of hundreds of thousands of people vanish into thin air overnight! Then they made everyone that didn't use their service believe that everyone who did use it had their service back. Which they didn't. Then, AT&T Broadband pulled the greatest trick of all - they made themselves disappear. But, lets start at the beginning...

    Once upon a time, there was Ma Bell, known to its victims as AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph). Ma owned everything that had to do with phone service. She made all the phones, strung all the wires, and pulled all the strings. If you wanted a phone, you had to lease it from Ma, because she wasn't letting go of anything. One day, after millions of Ma's enslaved phone serfs complained, Uncle Sam split Ma into many pieces, dubbed Ma and the Baby Bells (sort of like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves only bigger, uglier, meaner, stupider, and much more expensive). At the same time, Uncle Sam made Ma promise never to form a monopoly again to rip people off. Ma promised, but behind her back, her fingers were crossed.

    Next, Ma started thinking about how she used to have a wire connected to almost every home in the country, and whenever she felt like it, she could pull those wires and make every business and individual dance like a puppet on a string. How wonderful that was! Ma yearned for that power again, but all Uncle Sam had left her was long distance phone service - the wires now belonged to the Baby Bells. But Old Ma spotted someone doing something similar to what she used to do - some companies were selling cable TV and attaching wires to practically every home in the country. Better, yet, they were much bigger wires than those flimsy old phone wires Ma had used so many years ago. With the bigger wires, Ma could jerk people and businesses around a lot harder and faster! Ma loved it so much, she started buying up cable TV companies as fast as she could. Soon Ma had millions of customers depending on her, not only for cable television, but their local and long distance phone services, and their Internet connections.

    But then Ma made a couple of mistakes; she let a company named Excite help her set up the Internet connections, and she split the cable company off into another division, called AT&T Broadband. Ma made both of these mistakes because she thought that the current economic climate, called the Dot-Com Boom Era (DCBA) would last forever.

    Well, the DCBA ended, and was followed by the Get Real Era (GRE), sometimes called the Real Businesses Make Money and Values Are Based on Something Tangible Age (RBMMAVABOSTA). In the GRE, Excite found that you couldn't continue loosing money on every transaction, no matter how high the volume got. So, they told Ma and some other cable operators to either pay the freight or do it yourself. The other cable operators said "OK, we'll do it ourselves, but here is some money for you to keep on doing it until we are ready to take over. That way, we can minimize the negative affect on our valued customers, on whom we depend for our very existence."

    But Ma told Excite: "Either keep serving my customers or just turn all of your stuff over to me for these beans. That's my final offer, take it or leave it." Excite left it, which also left all of AT&T Broadband's cable customers with no Internet connections. That meant hundreds of thousands of people could not surf the web. They could not get email, so they didn't know if their orders had been shipped, or if their sister in Alaska had the baby, or if they had won that Florida vacation. They could not send email, so none of their non-AT&T friends new what was happening. Businesses could not make or take purchases, writers could not submit articles, sports fans could not listen to games or make obnoxious postings to sports forums. Pornographers could not...well you get the idea. Ma Grinch had stolen Christmas by taking away the very identities and avenue of communication of her Internet subscribers. And Ma didn't even bother to send them an email to let them know when it was going to happen. They just woke up one morning and it was gone, like the dew from a new fallen snow.

    In the meantime, Ma's minions cranked up the old hype machine, which spewed out dozens of beautiful and sweet smelling Press Releases and TV and Newspaper advertisements cheerily telling the world that AT&T regretted the problems, but they had only lasted for about the time it took the smallest and cutest hummingbird to flap its delicate and beautiful wings a single time. They also produced a bunch of heart warming Television Advertisements showing the entire management staff smiling and wishing the whole world, and especially their treasured customers the happiest of holiday seasons. Their customers, of course were sitting in darkened rooms banging their heads against computer screens and cursing with a fervor not seen since the dark ages. Many of them are still there, as AT&T's management can't grasp the fact the people with no Internet connections cannot read instructions posted on a web site, let alone one they don't even know exists. AT&T promised to call with instructions when service was restored - some of us are still waiting for that call, sitting next to our phone sets, cramping right hands poised above the receiver, praying for the blessed ring to return us to the on-ramp of the Internet Highway, and free us from our bondage.

    Ma's second mistake, that of splitting AT&T Broadband away from the rest of the company, came home to roost shortly thereafter. Since stock prices are no longer rising like helium balloons with no connection to the worth or profitability of the company, AT&T Broadband's had plunged to a level that made it simple for a competitor to buy the unit right out from under Ma's nose. So cable operator Comcast bought AT&T Broadband, throwing another steaming portion of uncertainty to all of the poor unsuspecting customers out there.

    What will happen now? All we know for sure is that prices will undoubtedly rise, but with Ma, er AT&T out of the picture, things have to get better! Or do they? We had better do a little research on this Comcast. We'll let you know if we find anything good. In the meantime, the moral of this story has to be: never trust a company named "Ma".

By Greg Hill

Copyright, 2002, All rights reserved.

FreshBaked.com Crowns Oregon NCAA Football National Champions!

Someday the national champion will be decided using a playoff system with the winners playing in the FreshBaked.com Bowl. Until that day, since the current system is obviously useless, we will use our common sense system to determine the FreshBaked.com National Champion: 

Colorado beat Nebraska, 62-36. so Colorado is 26 points better than Nebraska.

Oregon beat Colorado 38-14, so the Ducks are 24 points better than Colorado and therefore 50 points better than Nebraska.

Miami Beat Nebraska 37-14, so they are 23 points better than Nebraska.

So, Oregon is 27 points (50-23) better than Miami, and the consensus FreshBaked.com National Champion. Congrats, Ducks!