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More important, Ellison's bid is indicative of an industry that is frantic to partner up. HP was scoffed at last year for spending $16 billion on Compaq--an effort, opponents said, to get big fast without thinking about the structure of the business. Now the HP deal looks prescient. No matter which organization PeopleSoft merges with, there will be one less company around. "This is like The Bachelor, reality TV brought to the software industry," says Benioff. "Each day you turn on the TV and see who's getting the next rose." --With reporting by Laura A. Locke/San Francisco and Dody Tsiantar/New York

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GREGG KEESLING on reports that he received a call from an Army official saying he wasn't eligible to receive a condolence letter from President Obama because his son committed suicide, rather than dying in action
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Quotes of the Day »

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GREGG KEESLING on reports that he received a call from an Army official saying he wasn't eligible to receive a condolence letter from President Obama because his son committed suicide, rather than dying in action

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