Pity the CEOs of PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. Just days after they announced plans to merge their companies in a $1.7 billion dream deal, Oracle chief Larry Ellison stole their thunder by launching a $5.1 billion takeover bid for PeopleSoft.

The move, the IT industry`s messiest hostile takeover attempt since Computer Associates made an unsolicited offer for Computer Sciences in 1998, has prompted a flurry of lawsuits and counter suits as well as a fierce war of words between Ellison and Craig Conway, CEO of PeopleSoft.

Many PeopleSoft customers and shareholders have reacted angrily to the news. While Oracle has promised to support and maintain PeopleSoft applications for several years if its acquisition bid proves successful, it will stop development of the PeopleSoft 7 and 8 product suites and absorb some of its more attractive features into its own products.