Nearly three months ago when he launched a hostile takeover attempt of PeopleSoft Inc., Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison predicted PeopleSoft's demise.

In an interview with the Times on Wednesday, PeopleSoft Chief Executive Craig Conway declared it is Oracle's hostile bid that's finished.

"The Oracle saga has flatlined," Conway said from his company's tree-lined Pleasanton headquarters. "I don't think it has a heartbeat. I don't think it has a breath."

An Oracle executive rejected Conway's assertion that the bruising takeover fight is over as "wishful thinking." Oracle says its $7.3 billion pursuit of PeopleSoft will heat up again when the Justice Department, reviewing the bid for potential antitrust concerns, rules in the next few months. Oracle has extended its tender offer three times.

"Shareholders will decide when it's over," said Oracle spokesman Jim Finn.

Appearing relaxed and confident, Conway said he initially feared the impact of the Oracle bid on PeopleSoft.

"If someone said they were going to acquire a pacemaker company and immediately shut it down, now would you recommend that pacemaker to your mom or dad? Would a doctor recommend that pacemaker? There was every appearance in the world that the threat itself could become a self-fulfilling prophecy and harm our business. In our industry if you even appear to have viability issues, that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy," he said.

Instead, Conway contends, Oracle's takeover bid ran out of steam in July as PeopleSoft successfully counterpunched by courting customers with money-back guarantees, boosting investor confidence with unexpectedly strong second-quarter financial results, and adopting potent antitakeover defenses. The final blow came when the Justice Department cleared PeopleSoft's $1.8 billion merger with smaller competitor J.D. Edwards and extended its antitrust probe of Oracle's bid, he says.

"Everything since that time has been a wind down of the saga," Conway said.

Conway says PeopleSoft has emerged stronger, Oracle weaker. "We end the summer here from a product point of view stronger through the combination with J.D. Edwards, stronger from a customer support and goodwill point of view. We are more galvanized from an employee point of view, and we have a competitor that's probably weaker than (before)."

Ellison has pledged to wait until next summer to wage a proxy fight if necessary, but Conway dismissed Oracle's chances of prevailing. "Larry is great at saying things which are so provocative that people forget to look at whether they're realistic," Conway said. "Him saying 'I'm still interested in PeopleSoft' is like me saying I'm still interested in playing in the NBA. I'm 5-8."

That PeopleSoft renewed a money-back guarantee program for customers if Oracle takes over PeopleSoft and stops developing its products signals that customers are still nervous even if Conway isn't.

"It started out very much as a defensive program," Conway said. "Today it has almost as much value as a closing tool."

It remains to be seen whether Conway next week can convince Wall Street of the merits of PeopleSoft's merger with J.D. Edwards at a meeting with analysts in New York. "The reality of acquiring a software company is that it's dangerous. Most acquisitions of software companies don't work out," Conway said. "(This merger) is doing very well. All the surprises have been pleasant surprises."

For Conway, nothing was pleasant about Oracle's surprise bid for PeopleSoft.

"There was an undisguised maliciousness about (the Oracle bid)," he said. "Clearly it was intended to disrupt the J.D. Edwards acquisition and our business."

Conway claims he and Ellison had no history of bad blood, but the two engaged in a heated war of words that culminated in Ellison saying: "If (Conway) and (his dog) were standing next to each other, and I only had one bullet, trust me, it wouldn't be for the dog."

"The reason (the takeover fight) was personalized is that the messaging was so predatory in its intent that as an operating executive of the company, I had to respond to it," Conway said.

But, he said, "I think that comment even in our industry crossed the line of good taste."