Vendor strategies 24-01-05 N48

Oracle said it will lay-off about 5,000 people, or 9% of the combined Oracle/Peoplesoft workforce in its international entities.

HP will not break into 2 or 3 entities (as rumored in past months), but will merge its Printing and Personal Computer divisions. Vyomesh Joshi, current Printing division Director, will lead the new entity.

Electronics Arts has bought 20% of French video game maker Ubisoft.

Qualcomm joins TGn Sync, a group developing a proposal on the 802.11n standard for the IEEE.

Motorola acquires Ucentric Systems, a media networking software provider.

Elisa, Finland, will outsource its application management services to IBM Corp.

Cisco is to join the European RFID Centre.

Matsushita, Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Sony formed the Marlin Joint Development Association to develop a digital rights management (DRM) standard to deter piracy and illegal copying of music and video.

Agilent Technologies is to acquire Wavics, a Korean-based maker of power amplifier wireless modules.