Waking up to a code-free breakthrough

By ADAM GIFFORD

Peoplesoft head Craig Conway knows the message he wants to get out about the latest version of the company's software, Peoplesoft 8.

As he told customers at a user conference in Cairns last week: "I tell our sales organisations, when you wake up in the morning and get ready for work, when your children ask for cereal for breakfast, you tell them Oracle has code on the client. SAP has code on the client. Peoplesoft 8 has no code on the client."

For a company that makes huge systems to automate complex organisational processes, making software which can run over the internet is a big step forward. The client, the PC or terminal in front of the end user becomes almost irrelevant.

"You can walk up to any web browser anywhere in the world and access Peoplesoft 8 applications.

"Every screen has been completely rewritten for the web - 14,000 screens rewritten with a native web look and feel," Mr Conway said.

"If you look at Oracle internet applications or SAP applications you see a client server interface over the web. They're not pure internet applications."

If all that's needed on the client is a standard internet browser, the system is easier to manage.

Peoplesoft chief technology officer Rick Bergquist quoted a study by industry analysts the Meta Group, which estimated client server systems cost about $US3000 ($7400) a year a workstation, compared with $US300 a year to maintain PCs containing the standard browser needed to access internet solutions.

Training costs are also reduced, because the applications conform to familiar web interfaces.

Mr Bergquist said Oracle 11i, Oracle's new internet application suite, "is equivalent to Peoplesoft 7.5," because it runs by downloading Java applets to the user's machine.

"Our technology two years ago had a Java client. We shipped it but we knew the cost of ownership problem was not solved and we set out to fix it."

While Oracle has shrugged off Peoplesoft's barbs by claiming Java is standard fare for modern web browsers, Mr Bergquist said customers and suppliers aren't about to let another company's code into their systems. Without bringing those groups in, companies can't realise the full benefits of e-business collaboration.

Another reason pure internet solutions become compelling is that XML (extensible markup language) technology allows better communication between applications.

Long and costly integration projects are no longer needed to make systems compatible with those used by customers and suppliers.

Peoplesoft 8 can be deployed internally or through ASPs (application service providers).

New Zealand customers will be able to buy hosted applications such as human resources management, financials, e-procurement and supply chain management through the Peoplesoft e-Centre being built in Sydney.

As well as the architecture change, Peoplesoft 8 contains 59 new e-business and supply chain applications on top of the 108 rewritten applications.

On its release in the United States last month, AMR Research said Peoplesoft 8 provided "a huge improvement in use and deployment options, and sets a new industry standard for the application user interface."

Other industry analysts were similarly complimentary, Aberdeen Group saying it delivered functionality needed to address companies' specific pain points in the move to e-business.

But Mr Conway said that while it would be tempting to declare victory, "all we have done is joined the two leaders at the front of the race. We have to execute on this product."

German firm SAP remains a threat because of its huge market share, but "I think they have architecture issues, they have muddled strategy, and 70 per cent of customers aren't on the latest release so it is hard to migrate them."

That compares with 89 per cent of Peoplesoft customers who are on version 7 or better.

"Our greatest competitor is not SAP but Oracle. Oracle is weakest in terms of the quality of its applications but strongest in terms of marketing instinct, and I think it's also got a complete product offering, which SAP doesn't have," he said.

Since taking over at Peoplesoft from founder David Duffield a year ago, Mr Conway, a vice-president at Oracle from 1985 to 1993, has been campaigning against Oracle and its chief executive, Larry Ellison.



Peoplesoft research and development will account for 15 per cent of revenue this year, down from the 27 per cent needed to get Peoplesoft 8 finished but still well ahead of the industry average.

Research has started on Peoplesoft 9.

"I am adamant Peoplesoft will never again be in the position we were in 1999 where people didn't know we were in the game," Mr Conway said.

He has also changed the look of the company, requiring staff to dress up when meeting customers.

In Cairns, that meant executives sweltered in the tropical heat in suits and ties.

"I think it's part of the imagery of taking Peoplesoft from a company with this warm, supportive, paternalistic reputation and putting a bit of an edge on it," Mr Conway said.

"I tell employees to never forget we live in a tough neighbourhood.

"Larry Ellison lives next door. Hasso Platner [SAP chairman] lives across the street. On the other side of us is Tom Siebel [Siebel Systems].

"These are tough people and in some cases bad people. We have to be competitive and look competitive."

Outside Peoplesoft, Mr Conway said, his time belongs to his family.

"I have two children, aged 10 and 8, and I believe no person can do more than two things well.

"So my career is one, and my family the other.

"I try to spend from 6 pm Friday to 5 pm Sunday unplugged from Peoplesoft, and we take a lot of vacations."

* Adam Gifford travelled to Cairns as a guest of Peoplesoft.