Oracle Hires Global Specialists To Explore Feasibility of Buying Accenture 63
Paul Kunert writes in an exclusive report via The Register: Oracle has hired global specialists to explore the feasibility of buying multi-billion dollar consultancy Accenture, sources have told us. The database giant has engaged a team of consultants to conduct due diligence to "explore the synergies that could be created if they [Oracle] bought Accenture lock stock and barrel," one source claimed. On top of the financial considerations, the consultants are evaluating the pros and cons including the potential impact on Oracle's wider channel. "While these things have a habit of fizzling out there are some fairly serious players around the table," a contact added. Another claimed the process was at an early stage. "If buying Accenture was a 100 meter race, Oracle is at the 10 to 15 meter stage now." [T]his buy would be an immensely bold, complicated and pricey move: NYSE-listed Accenture has a market cap of $77.5 billion, and shareholders will expect a premium offer. A deal would dwarf Oracle's $10 billion buy of PeopleSoft, its $7.4 billion deal for Sun Microsystems, and more recently, the $9.3 billion splashed on Netsuite. In buying Accenture, Oracle would be taking a leaf out of the mid-noughties handbook - when HP fatefully bought EDS and IBM acquired PWC to carve out a brighter future.
That won't end well (Score:2)
for all parties.
Re:That won't end well (Score:5, Funny)
I can't begin to imagine the bills from a group of consultants evaluating a group of consultants. Is that billing squared?
"Explore the synergies" will be worth it (Score:4, Insightful)
You know a consultant is worth every dime when they're going to "explore the synergies". That phrase makes me wonder - did they hire *actual* consultants or parodies?
Re:"Explore the synergies" will be worth it (Score:4, Interesting)
In the world of business executives, they've formalized "synergy" as having a real meaning - how can we use the excuse of merging facilities and people in such a way that we can justify cutting costs far deeper than what will support our current contracts or future business, in order to shore up stock prices int he short term (and collect out golden parachutes when it collapses... and after we've cashed out our own stock, of course).
See: HPE spinning off former EDSers and the remainder of their enterprise folks to CSC in the form of "DXC Technology" - a company already stripped to the bone, driven by "synergies" and after the "spin-merge" is completed on April 1 (great day for it), they'll commence even more reductions in their workforce and more replacement of skilled, experienced labor in favor of recent college graduates (who will probably only stay for a year or two anyway). Oddly enough, these massive cuts to the rank-and-file workers is never accompanied by a similar slaughter of the upper-level management (which only becomes even more lop-sided)
Basically, the moment two companies talk about a merger and "synergies", it is the start of the downward spiral for both (or at least formal acknowledgment).
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Basically, the moment two companies talk about a merger and "synergies", it is the start of the downward spiral for both...
I don't know anything about Accenture. As for Oracle, I'd be happy to see them circling the drain. Too bad Ellison would never go down with the ship though.
Re:"Explore the synergies" will be worth it (Score:4, Funny)
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Accenture is basically a giant body shop of consultants and no skill cheap contractors. Their consultants will blow smoke up your ass harder than a fully loaded 2 stroke marine diesel and their contractors suck harder than a black hole with daddy issues. I have twice dealt with Accenture at customer sites and I have never met one who wasn't just wasting my valuable oxygen.
Yes, but if anyone can find a way to make Accenture suck even worse, it's Oracle.
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Accenture was the consulting arm of Arthur Andersen (which is an accounting firm). Consulting in accounting usually means how to structure contracts to minimize tax consequences.
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You know a consultant is worth every dime when they're going to "explore the synergies". That phrase makes me wonder - did they hire *actual* consultants or parodies?
Wait until he discovers Dilbert is not a parody but a documentary...
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I agree. Since a world without Oracle and Accenture would be a decidedly better world, I hope they do it though.
huh (Score:1)
just imagine the synergy of two companies peddling the same bullsh*t.
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The merge will be detected by LIGO.
Dumb idea (Score:1)
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Spot on.
Not even Larry Ellison can stump the Trump.
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Twenty-odd Freedom Caucus members was all it took to send Trump packing over health care. Maybe he was a great businessman (a debatable point), but as a political negotiator, he may be the worst the US has had since James Buchanan.
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The 20 odd is putting it a bit too quickly. To satisfy them they'd have to throw overboard the more moderate Republicans and the bill would still have gone down.
And Trump isn't a businessman in the yuge sense of the word. He was not the CEO of a corporation, he was CEO (still is) of a Ma and Pa Kettle operation beholden to no one except the rubes who loaned him money, which appears to include some shady Russian characters who are the muscle behind Putin.
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To satisfy them they'd have to throw overboard the more moderate Republicans and the bill would still have gone down.
The moderate Republicans already left in the last eight years. Only the extremists remain. A so called moderate today is just someone who is a shade less extremist than the next guy.
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How cute. You actually think it's going to happen.
How do I get this job? (Score:4, Insightful)
Me: Sounds like you want me to be a consultant...
O: No no no Consultant is such a 90's term "Global Acquisition Specialist" is better.
Me:
O: Oh no, this has to be a SMART expenditure of capital! We can't be wasting Larry's cash that's reserved for a small Bohemian island on a Dud!
Me:...even though purchasing something that is well known to be a horrible investment is a bad idea...
O: You have to look at it TODAY not how it was THEN! Things change you know this!
Me:
O: That's only a few Oracle Database Enterprise licenses. Pocket change
Me:..and you want to wrap this up in the next Quarter.
O: Sooner the better, due diligence and all that.
Me: I'll submit my invoices straight away starting with this conversation.
O: CAPITAL! I knew we hired the right team!
Me: <looks around at the empty chairs only person in the room>
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What the hell is that?
Millennial hipster-speak for identifying the decade that follows the 90s.
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The Y2K bug didn't fizzle in the sense you think it did. It was put to rest because a lot of companies spent a lot of money fixing their systems. Fear and the bottom line more or less guaranteed the worst would not happen.
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The Y2K bug didn't fizzle in the sense you think it did. It was put to rest because a lot of companies spent a lot of money fixing their systems. Fear and the bottom line more or less guaranteed the worst would not happen.
Windows ME (Millennium Edition) was a bigger end of the world event for video game testers, lacking hardware support for most video games. Many video game companies boycotted ME. Microsoft came out with Windows 98 SE (Second Edition).
In a related news... (Score:5, Funny)
HP bought EDS during their greatest failure (Score:3)
SAP ? (Score:2)
Accenture is a big SAP implementer, and other rival software (Microsoft, salesforce.com).
In related news .... (Score:2)
... the 50,000 Accenture employees that are actually paying attention just shat their pants...
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... the 50,000 Accenture employees that are actually paying attention just shat their pants...
No problem, 90% of them still wear diapers
Popcorn futures (Score:2)
Popcorn futures up 5% on the news.
Oracle + Accenture (Score:2)
This merger should make for a really fascinating corporation.
While at it, why not merge with Monsanto, Halliburton, and Blackwater --- not as if their reputation/image can get any worse...
(Oracle's reputation is well-known in these here parts. Accenture grew out of Andersen Consulting, a sister company to Arthur Andersen, accountants that didn't detect anything wrong w/Enron back in 00s).
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Interesting... (Score:2)
Lashing ships together so they sink better (Score:2)
Impressive. (Score:2)
Doubling down on the failure is a bold move. ;)
Bit Time Consulting (Score:2)
The old comics are as relevant as ever. It's actually pretty funny to see how little has changed in the software consulting business.
http://exposingevilempire.com/... [exposingevilempire.com]
RIP James Sanchez
Guaranteed jobs for new grads (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe when the FTC gets hold of this merger, it'll be approved solely on the merits of "job creation." Let me explain...
I've had the full experience of working for companies that hired Accenture and the other large management consulting firms over my career. Over the course of working with people, you get to talking. Almost every single client facing employee they have on-shore is a recent college graduate. These firms are structured very much like other professional services firms -- you need to be in them from the beginning of your career (unless they're hiring you for a limited skill set they can't offshore or teach to a new grad.) The consultancies want to get new hires before they've had a chance to learn any other company's "bad habits." As a result, they need a constant pipeline of fresh new college graduates, which could be touted as "job creation."
My experience has been that Accenture and the like has a crack team of partners who bring in their A-Team senior consultants to sell the dream to executives. Once the contract is signed, the partners and the A-Team are replaced with a C-Team full of Joe/Jane Average clones. One of the other reasons they hire recent grads is the fact that all of them fly to client sites, then fly home on weekends, for most of the year. The on-site people are solely responsible for project managing, presenting PowerPoints, and collecting requirements. Any actual work that needs to be done is sent to India or other cheap "delivery centers." So, it makes sense -- you have a guaranteed employment sink for new grads with business degrees, and can point to it as "saving domestic jobs."
One thing that would be strange is how Oracle would manage them. A funny thing I've heard from multiple Accenture employees is that there's an actual indoctrination session before they send you in front of clients. Because they're just getting raw graduates, absolutely everything is taught, such as how to dress, what language to use in front of customers, and a mini-MBA school. (I think this is why you see so many young-ish people in identical dark suits hanging out in airport lounges loudly discussing synergies on conference calls.) This would be an interesting clash with Oracle's sales culture, but it makes sense. They would have a ready resource to sell right along with their ERP software -- and there would be zero incentive whatsoever for Oracle to make the software implementable by end users. (This is SAP's MO by the way, Oracle is just stealing it.)
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It would be interesting to find leaked video of the courses. The snow-job lessons could be quite entertaining; a kind of Dilbert-based Cult.