Today was to have been the deadline for PeopleSoft Inc. to accept the Oracle Corporation's buyout offer, which now totals about $7.3-billion. But PeopleSoft's Board of Directors rejected the bid, and Oracle officials have extended the offer to October 17, in hopes of winning over enough PeopleSoft shareholders to close the deal.

PeopleSoft, meanwhile, has renewed a strategy of offering licensing terms that would require Oracle to refund the software-license fees and other expenses of new PeopleSoft customers if Oracle buys the company and discontinues its products.

PeopleSoft began signing license agreements that included the refund offer in mid-June. The initial offer, which expired June 30, created potentially $391-million in additional costs for Oracle, said Steve Swasey, director of corporate public relations for PeopleSoft.

The offer, a key element in PeopleSoft's defense against a hostile takeover, still stands, Mr. Swasey said.

The money-back guarantee helped persuade University of Pittsburgh officials to proceed with their plans to buy PeopleSoft's software for managing student records, despite uncertainty about the outcome of the boardroom battle.

"It's a very generous rebate," said Robert F. Pack, vice provost for academic planning and resource management at Pittsburgh. With the refund offer, he said, "we felt that the risk was controllable."

Equally important, he said, was the fact that the university needed the new software and wasn't prepared to wait for the takeover fight to be settled. In a matter as complicated and vexing as switching to a new system for student record-keeping, timing is everything, he said. "You have to do it when you feel ready to do it."

Two other colleges, the University of Maryland at Baltimore and the University of Louisville, have also signed new license agreements with PeopleSoft, contributing to the company's better-than-expected revenues in the second quarter, which ended June 30.

Peter J. Murray, vice president for information technology at the Baltimore campus, said his university's license agreement included no refund guarantee. The university already uses PeopleSoft's financial and human-resources software and needed no financial incentive to license additional software, he said. It bought the software to satisfy "a business and financial need."

The university licensed PeopleSoft's Enterprise Portal, which it will use to provide personalized financial and human-resources information online for faculty and staff members, he said.

Oracle, meanwhile, has issued statements saying that the company remains fully committed to its offer and that it will support PeopleSoft's products.

While several lawsuits spawned by the buyout offer are still pending and an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice continues, some college administrators who depend on PeopleSoft for their business operations say they have fewer concerns now than they did on June 6, when Oracle announced its intentions.

Baltimore's Mr. Murray, for one, thinks the row between Oracle and PeopleSoft will continue a while longer, but that, ultimately, the two companies will not come together. "I just have a feeling it's not going to happen," he said.