San Francisco ? Business software maker Oracle Corp. raised its hostile takeover bid for rival PeopleSoft Inc. by 33 percent to $26 per share Wednesday, setting the stage for more high-stakes drama in the high-tech soap opera.

The all-cash offer, which values PeopleSoft at $9.4 billion, tops Oracle’s previous bid of $19.50 per share. The new offer is a 19 percent premium from PeopleSoft’s closing price Tuesday.

PeopleSoft’s shares gained 81 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $22.70 in trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, where Oracle’s shares declined 64 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $13.27.

The market’s lukewarm reaction reflected the uncertainties still facing the sweetened bid, most notably a nearly completed U.S. antitrust review that could scuttle a takeover that Oracle has been pursuing for the past eight months.

Oracle is betting the new bid will win over PeopleSoft’s major stockholders and pressure PeopleSoft’s board to drop its staunch resistance to the offer.

“This is our final price,” Oracle chairman Jeff Henley said Wednesday. “We urge PeopleSoft’s directors to seriously consider our offer and put the interests of their stockholders first.”

PeopleSoft’s board will meet to review Oracle’s revised bid and “make its recommendation to PeopleSoft stockholders in due course,” company spokesman Steve Swasey said in a statement Wednesday.

Oracle set a March 12 deadline for PeopleSoft stockholders to tender their shares. The shareholders will have another chance to take sides at PeopleSoft’s March 25 annual meeting, where Oracle has nominated an alternative slate of directors to supplant four PeopleSoft incumbents.

PeopleSoft’s board has twice rejected Oracle since its suitor made its initial offer of $16 per share in early June. Pleasanton, Calif.-based PeopleSoft has consistently maintained it can become more valuable by capitalizing on its recently completed $2 billion acquisition of J.D. Edwards & Co.

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle, though, has depicted PeopleSoft as a struggling company destined to die unless it submits to a takeover.

Business software maker Oracle Corp. is increasing its bid for rival PeopleSoft Inc. by 33 percent to 6 per share. Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle made the bid Wednesday.