At long last, Oracle really has its prize.

Oracle today completed its acquisition of PeopleSoft. More than 97 per cent of PeopleSoft's outstanding shares have been tendered in favor of the deal. Oracle has been forced to extend its tender offer deadline twice as it looked to gather the 90 per cent of PeopleSoft shares needed to avoid a special shareholder meeting to approve the purchase. By avoiding the meeting, Oracle sped up its buy of PeopleSoft by about four to six weeks.

PeopleSoft is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oracle.

Oracle will begin notifying workers of layoffs on Jan. 14. It's possible that close to half of PeopleSoft's 12,000 staffers could get the axe. The company will then hold a web cast on Jan. 18 to provide more details on its plans for PeopleSoft's software.

So ends one of the nastiest IT mergers in recent history. It took Oracle 18 months to convince PeopleSoft's board to accept the buyout, which ended up at a price of $10.3bn.

For those of you who missed all the wonderful ins and outs of Oracle's wrangling, have a look at the history of the deal here. ®

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