The company's IT assets will be standardized on the Oracle-owned JD Edwards application which Foster's uses, according to an internal employee memo issued by integration director Michael Brooks in the wake of the acquisition.

Brooks said that following an assessment of the benefits, risks and costs of leveraging the Southcorp systems, Foster's management decided that Oracle, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft best meet the company's mid-term needs.

The decision was based on strategic considerations and integration risk management, rather than a qualitative analysis of the two platforms, the memo said. "Adopting SAP across the business would have involved more risk and time," Brooks said. "It was a choice of migrating two organizations onto a largely new system, mySAP, or migrating Southcorp onto the existing Foster's platform."

While a company spokesperson was unwilling to disclose the cost of its SAP investment, Computerworld understands it was upwards of $20 million.

"It is important to note that this decision is no reflection on SAP software, we needed to migrate to one system and the JDE platform provided us with the best opportunity," a Foster's spokesperson said, adding that the integration will take place over the next 18 months.