It may be one of the software industry's largest acquisitions to date, but Oracle expects to work out its merger plans with PeopleSoft by the end of the year and will "hit the ground running in January," according to Oracle President Charles Phillips.

"This has been a long time in coming and is a very strategic acquisition. We've been thinking about this for the last 18 months and have a pretty solid plan," Phillips said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. He added that he will be heading out to PeopleSoft's offices in Pleasanton, Calif., Wednesday to begin work on some of those merger plans. "This is not something that will drag out."

Oracle announced on Monday it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for $26.50 per share, or approximately $10.3 billion. The deal is expected to close in early January.

One part of the plan Oracle has already decided upon is that it will finish and then sell PeopleSoft 9, the next version of the PeopleSoft's enterprise software suite. "It is just another release with some enhancements," Phillips said.

Additionally, there will be another version of the product from the former JD Edwards & Co., called JD Edwards 6, Phillips said. PeopleSoft acquired JD Edwards last year for $1.8 billion.

"We are going to evaluate the reseller network, and we want resellers to continue to sell the upgrades. We'll tell resellers that we would also like them to take a look at Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition," Phillips said. "Resellers can carry multiple editions, and as for our partners, there will be lots of products for them to sell."

Oracle plans to support the product lines it is acquiring for the next 10 years while making it easier for users to migrate to Oracle products over time, the company's president said.

Phillips acknowledge that some of the 12,000 employees at PeopleSoft are facing layoffs, but he said numbers have not been decided on. "We are interested in keeping those in the developer and support organizations, but a lot less of the administrative positions," he said.

Oracle will also try to quickly evaluate the partnerships and agreements that PeopleSoft brings to the merger. For example, last September, PeopleSoft announced it was deepening its ties with IBM and planned to work with Big Blue to optimize its applications for use with IBM's WebSphere middleware and development tools. It would also sell WebSphere products directly through its own sales force.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.