Shareholders' D-day for PeopleSoft and Oracle

Oracle's deadline for PeopleSoft shareholders to accept its $24 per share bid expires at midnight tonight.

With opinion divided on whether investors in PeopleSoft will be swayed by the database giant's $9.2bn (£4.99bn) offer, experts say neither company is likely to benefit from a takeover.

Peter Ryan, enterprise software analyst at Datamonitor told Computing that 'anything at this point is possible'.

'It could go either way, depending on which of the financial or technical analysts you speak to,' he said. 'The key message is that this has been going for nearly 18 months now and, regardless of who wins today, both companies have been damaged by this.'

Rival shareholder groups, representing either those against or in favour of the takeover, have been battling all week to gain late-decider's support in advance of tonight's final deadline for tendering shares.

Oracle needs a majority of available shares for the deal to go ahead. But has said it will enter a proxy battle for control for the board at PeopleSoft's next shareholder meeting.

PeopleSoft stock closed Thursday at $22.92, up 10 cents.