It began at at $16 a share. Then twice it went up to $26 a share, before ending at for the past few months at $21.

"It" is Oracle's tender offer for PeopleSoft shares. And now it has just gone to a new position of $24. This really, truly, madly, deeply is Oracle's final offer, apparently. The bid values PeopleSoft at $8.8 billion.

Additionally Oracle's Larry Ellison and Chairman Jeff Henley have written to the PeopleSoft board saying said Oracle will drop most of the conditions to the offer (though not the demand that PeopleSoft drops its poison pill and other obstacles to the takeover.)

"The PeopleSoft board of directors is the only obstacle to stockholder consideration of our offer,'' Ellison and Henley wrote.

The $24 ball now lies in the PeopleSoft board's court. For the first time ever there is a deadline on the offer: if a majority of shares have not been tendered by midnight Nov. 19, the offer will be withdrawn. 

According to Reuters, This is the first time since the bid was launched in June 2003 that Oracle has set such a deadline.

Today's news follows hard on the heels of last week's news that the 25-member European Commission (EC) would reportedly announce the removal the last remaining obstacle in Europe to Oracle's hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft, after a year-long review of the deal. News which in turn followed shortly after the US court ruling against the Justice Department and in favor of the Oracle bid going ahead.