PeopleSoft Targets Smaller Businesses With New Apps Suite

Hoping to capture more customers in the fast-growing small business market, PeopleSoft Inc. on Monday unveiled a suite of enterprise applications that combines industry-specific business processes, implementation services, and hardware.

PeopleSoft World Express runs on the IBM iSeries technology platform, and includes applications for financials, distribution, manufacturing, human resources, and project management. The software is available in suites targeted at four industries--industrial manufacturers, wholesale distributors, home builders, and construction companies--and each suite comes preconfigured with as many as 30 industry-specific business processes.

For example, the suite for construction companies includes a job-costing process that lets companies define the job, such as the building of a bridge, and then define and track all the costs associated with that job, said Dave Siebert, group VP and general manager at PeopleSoft World products.

Pricing varies for the software, which will be available in the second quarter, but a suite that includes the iSeries hardware, pre-configured processes, and licenses for 10 to 20 users is priced at about $50,000.

"We believe small companies need three things. They need a solution that is very functional, yet very affordable and very reliable," Siebert said. "The belief is that small companies are facing the same things big companies face. They need very robust apps. But they need software that they can install quickly at a good price point, and that is easily supported, so it doesn't take a lot of people in IT."