Look who wants a dogfight with SAP!

Oracle today made a rival bid for Retek (RETK), offering $9/share (SAP offered $8.5/share). Expecting a bidding war, the shares were trading at around $10!

Oracle is doing the right thing here, since allowing SAP to go through with this would have given it an edge in the retail software market. If there were any doubts that Oracle intended to take on SAP with the purchase of PeopleSoft, this dogfight should dispel them.

The interesting point here is that Oracle seems to only react (earlier to Peoplesoft's JD Edwards takeover) instead of taking the lead. I don't understand why.

But, as long as these guys keep hiking the offer price for Retek, I won't be complaining.