PeopleSoft Aims To Make Its Apps Friendlier

PeopleSoft Inc. says that in the next few years it will throw millions of dollars and more than 500 developers into a companywide initiative aimed at improving customers' experience with all of its enterprise applications.

The initiative, dubbed Total Ownership Experience, was unveiled Tuesday at PeopleSoft's 2003 Leadership Summit in Las Vegas and will focus on cutting time and expense out of installations, implementations, and upgrades. Though few details were given, PeopleSoft also says it will add technology to its software that automates support and maintenance and provide multivendor business-process integration out of the box.

Improving the ERP-implementation process could be just what the doctor ordered. According to a new Meta Group study of more than 200 organizations, ERP implementations cost about 1% of corporate revenue for large companies. That means a $1 billion company spends about $10 million, with more than 70% of that going toward labor, according to the study, titled Deriving Value From 21st Century ERP Applications. The study also finds that ERP implementations take about 20 months, but it takes at least 27 months before benefits are realized.

To help achieve some of Total Ownership Experience's goals, the company says it's extending its offshore presence in India with a new global implementation, development, and support facility in Bangalore that will open in June. PeopleSoft is partnering with Hexaware, a systems integrator in India, to establish the center.

The initiative was accompanied by a slew of new software and product enhancements, as well as a partnership with IBM to optimize and port all 170 of its apps to Linux. PeopleSoft has selected IBM eServer xSeries, DB2 Universal Database, and WebSphere Application Server as its Linux development platform of choice.

"Linux is ready for prime time," says Rick Bergquist, PeopleSoft's chief technology officer. "It's not just a plaything that techies use."

Several PeopleSoft customers among Wall Street banks persuaded the software maker to release Linux versions of its financial-services programs, and most were driven by cost savings in Linux hardware and software, Bergquist says. The company's entire catalog of applications will be available on Linux by the fourth quarter, he says.

New products include Enterprise Service Automation for IT designed to help IT organizations automate key business processes and align projects with business objectives. In a partnership with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, PeopleSoft with deliver prepackaged ESA for IT software called CIO OneSource that includes Cap Gemini's IT benchmarking, process models, and industry expertise.

Other announcements include a new version of PeopleSoft Recruiting; vertical packages of PeopleSoft's Enterprise Performance Management software for health care, communications, and manufacturing; Performance-Driven Manufacturing consisting of a scorecard and supply-and-demand planning tools; and support for Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in its Financial Management applications.