J.D. Edwards World Solution Company or JD Edwards, abbreviated JDE, was an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company, whose namesake ERP system is still sold under ownership by Oracle Corporation. JDE's products included World for IBM AS/400 minicomputers (the users using a computer terminal or terminal emulator), OneWorld for CNC architecture (a client–server fat client), and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (a web-based thin client). The company was founded March 1977 in Denver, Colorado, by Jack Thompson, C.T.P. "Chuck" Hintze, Dan Gregory, and C. Edward "Ed" McVaney. In June 2003, JD Edwards agreed to sell itself to PeopleSoft, Inc. for $1.8 billion. Within days, Oracle launched a hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft sans JD Edwards. PeopleSoft went ahead with the JD Edwards acquisition anyway, and in 2005, Oracle Corporation finally took ownership of the combined JD Edwards-PeopleSoft organization. As of 2020, Oracle continues to sell and actively support both ERP packages, branded now as JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World. History Formation Ed McVaney originally trained as an engineer at the University of Nebraska, and in 1964 was employed by Western Electric, then by Peat Marwick, and moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1968, and later became a partner at Alexander Grant where he hired Jack Thompson and Dan Gregory. Around that time he was realizing that, in his words, "The culture of a public accounting firm is the antithesis of developing software. The idea of spending time on something that you’re not getting paid for—software development—they just could not stomach that." McVaney felt that accounting clients did not understand what was required for software development, and decided to start his own firm. "JD Edwards" was founded in 1977 by Jack Thompson, Dan Gregory, and Ed McVaney; the company's name is drawn from the initials "J" for Jack, "D" for Dan, and "Edwards" for Ed. McVaney took a salary cut from $44,000 to $36,000 to ensure initial funding. Start-up clients included McCoy Sales, a wholesale distribution company in Denver, and Cincinnati Milacron, a maker of machine tools. The business received a $75,000 contract to develop wholesale distribution system software and a $50,000 contract with the Colorado Highway Department to develop governmental and construction cost accounting systems. The first international client was Shell Oil Company. Shell Oil implemented JD Edwards in Canada and then in Cameroon. Gregory flew to Shell Oil in Douala, Cameroon to install the company's first international, multi-national, multi-currency client