One Oracle salesperson based in the U.S. said they were called into a meeting Friday and told the news then. More cuts are likely to come, said the salesperson, who asked to remain anonymous.

"They're going to have to. They're not going to sell any [customer relationship management software] in these times," the worker said. "BEA was very bloated and they've got to prune a lot of those people out."

According to a , Oracle expects to eventually spend a total of US$148 million on severance packages for laid-off employees of BEA, which it .

While trying to fight off Oracle, BEA changed the so that most employees would receive between 3 months and 12 months of pay and COBRA health insurance if they were laid-off within a year of an acquisition.

Oracle completed its $8.5-billion takeover of BEA on April 29 of last year.