October 23, 2000

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PeopleSoft CRM Upgrade Lags Behind The Competition

Suite includes key features already delivered by major rivals

By Jeff Sweat

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eopleSoft Inc. this week will unveil its first full customer-relationship management application suite since it bought Vantive Corp. a year ago. But the scope of the software signals that the vendor is still behind some of its competition.

The company will make PeopleSoft CRM 8 the focus of its user conference in Los Angeles next week, an indication of how important the vendor views CRM. No wonder--PeopleSoft says its existing CRM applications are responsible for the bulk of new sales. PeopleSoft CRM 8 includes a customer portal, integration to third-party applications, and an improved customer-interaction center. Those are important features, but they've already been delivered by PeopleSoft competitors Oracle and Siebel Systems Inc.

A centerpiece of the new suite is a Java application infrastructure that companies can use to build portals to access PeopleSoft applications. The Java support also means Vantive front-office apps and PeopleSoft back-office apps can run on the same computer platform. The products had already worked together but required third-party products to connect them.

Canadian Pacific Railway Co. says PeopleSoft CRM 8 will give the company a Web interface that lets it extend the software to even more users, such as sales and field-service personnel. "We're an 18,000-person organization, and we need something to pull everyone together," says Brock Winter, VP of customer service for the Calgary, Alberta, company.

Another significant piece of PeopleSoft CRM 8 is a customer-interaction center that lets customer-service representatives do more than field complaints. PeopleSoft has added configuration and order-management features that make it easier to create sales from the call center. For example, when a customer calls, a service representative can use the configuration tool to design a product that meets the customer's needs and even place an order without opening a new application.

While parts of the new release are shipping now, most apps--including a CRM portal, the customer-interaction center upgrade, and analytics and wireless access--won't ship until the first half of next year. Pricing ranges from $2,500 to $3,500 per user.

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