I thought Dave Duncan who founded PeopleSoft was an ex-oracle guy.

The key to Oracle’s success was in taking out the competition — pure and simple. The issue then becomes one of merging /porting the code streams over time. In the case of Oracle there is no other competition except for SAP in Apps and IBM in databases and plumbing. Thus there is no other game in town no matter how bad Oracle does.

Oracle has always been dictatorial. But so is SAP and IBM so there is little choice. But their stuff still works. The banks became dictatorial but their BS just didn’t work anymore. It’s probably the only case of a big industry putting itself out of business.

The country has proven too big to succeed. There are no brains (or assemblage of brains) large enough to comprehend the complexity of trying to run, or manage a country of this size and diversity. They cannot divine the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The Democratic republic has failed and is now on life support, has been for a decade or more.

The government has created 10 problems for every one it tries to solve. Why? Because the people behind the solutions are greatly flawed men and women, and that’s even before corruption sets in which is nearly immediately upon taking office.

Like nearly all large entities that fail a new model is needed, desperately.

Downsizing the United States is the only possible way to manage the leviathan, the giant that this lumbering country has become. Or we will just plod along and eventually die a slow death while the Asian tigers eat us for lunch.

Growing our government which now seems to have happened over the last 8 years, taking up over half of our GDP, and more cancerous growth predicted, will only hasten that fatal day.

We live in a culture dedicated to super-sizing, bigger portions, bigger waistlines, bigger businesses, bigger school systems, bigger businesses, bigger government.

However desirable optimal might be, it ain’t gonna happen. The only way our ginormous institutions are gonna shrink is for more efficient competitors to devour them, a bite at a time.

Of course, with our loyal best-gummint-money-can-buy backing the money-changers, such a down-sizing would necessarily imply the minimalization of these United States.

“After all, many mergers ultimately don’t add value to companies, and even end up causing serious damage. “Studies indicate that several companies fail to show positive results when it comes to mergers,” says Wharton accounting professor Robert Holthausen, who teaches courses on M&A strategy. Noting that there have been “hundreds of studies” conducted on the long-term results of mergers, Holthausen says that researchers estimate the range for failure is between 50% and 80%.”

From 2005 – Wharton Business School: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articlepdf/1137.pdf?CFID=2621179&CFTOKEN=41130433&jsessionid=a830c729da47cdb515212228867160632425

from post “first part .. acquisitions / second half … needs to be unassembled”

there is the first part the acquisition the beginning which includes job cuts, plants and facilities closures

the middle part, which includes among other activities job cuts, plant and facilities closures, and blame game (mostly blaming any body not responsible for the problems)

followed the end game…..which includes jobs cuts, plants and facilities closures, loss write offs, potential bankruptcy filings, etc

seems to me that the main purpose of these exercises is to stroke the CEO and fees,,,,and reduce employment and wages.

seems to only do part 2 of that.

and of course, repeat, repeat and repeat adinfinitum

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20090113a.htm