During their heydays, Vantive (a CRM product) consultants enjoyed a great deal of demand and thus prospered well. For most of them it lasted more than half a decade making them an object of envy. However every beginning has an end and their end came in the form of Peoplesoft (PSFT) buying Vantive. Even there we saw a ray of hope as PSFT continued their support for Vantive and released a migration path for existing Vantive installations. So it seemed that, after a dip, we will be back on demand if we would all learn PSFT. Then came the unpleasant surprises – the downturn of economy due to 9/11; but the monstrous threat came in the form of Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle corporation. He unleashed a hostile bid to take over PSFT shaking the confidence of the clients, who were planning a migration to PSFT, across the globe. Not just them, but us too. We don’t know if we should go ahead and invest in PSFT training or get trained in SAP (another ERP tool which is so big that Larry wouldn’t dare to bid) or better to wait.

Some lucky fellows got their contracts extended; others got into other IT fields like analysis; few are going for PSFT training; others for SAP. But all of us are waiting how this episode is going to unfold.

For once, I am wondering whether to invest in private training or wait for the firm to come up with something.