Oracle Refreshes PeopleSoft CRM Software

Looking to keep its acquired PeopleSoft customers within the Oracle fold, Oracle this week is shipping PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM 9, a new release of the acquired vendor's customer relationship management application.

Planning for the application's business requirements was under way when Oracle acquired PeopleSoft early last year, says John Webb, Oracle product strategy VP. He acknowledges that Oracle is continuing to develop its PeopleSoft applications almost solely for the acquired company's installed base, pending the completion of Oracle's next-generation Fusion applications that will include elements of Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Siebel software.

The new PeopleSoft CRM 9 application and PeopleTools 8.48 development toolset, on which the new CRM app is built, have tighter links to Oracle's Fusion middleware technology. Oracle, for example, has integrated its Oracle XML Publisher reporting tool and Oracle BPEL Process Manager with CRM 9.

CRM 9 also provides new features specifically targeting the communications and financial services industries. For the former, the software offers more flexible customer and order management processes that allow communications companies to offer differentiated services and pricing plans. New capabilities for financial services companies include sample processes for financial account creation, as well as lead and referral management.

The release also offers new usability features, including auto-population of commonly typed text using hotkeys, improvements in how sales-lead data is imported, and a more complete view of customer information.

The upgrade is available now and priced according to metrics including the amount of a customer company's revenue.