PeopleSoft outlines integrated roadmap
PeopleSoft has outlined its integration roadmap with the newly acquired JD Edwards, which sees the merged firm maintaining clearly demarked boundaries for its software.
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With the merger recently completed, PeopleSoft will primarily concentrate on two existing product lines, to be called PeopleSoft Enterprise, and PeopleSoft Enterprise One. Enterprise is targeted at upper end of the market, primarily for large companies. Enterprise One will focus on mid-market firms.
The two product lines will keep their separate code bases. Enterprise One is fundamentally a rebranding of JD Edwards 5 software.
Both will be able to incorporate modules from the other line, said Craig Conway, president and chief executive of PeopleSoft.
Conway argues that PeopleSoft’s customer base would benefit from having previously unavailable modules, such as real estate management. Equally, JD Edwards’ install-base will get better human resources and supplier relationship management features.
In a thinly veiled attack on Oracle’s hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft, Conway said: ‘The whole acquisition hasn’t been about consolidation. It’s about expanding customer choice.’
PeopleSoft maintains that it intends to keep separate product lines, relying on portals and integration software to ensure that the modules from Enterprise One and Enterprise are compatible.
Conway said that the combined product portfolio would give it the basis to challenge rivals SAP, with talk of being bought out by Oracle ‘no longer a current issue’.
Despite Conway’s triumphalism, Oracle’s $7.5bn for the combined firms remains on the table.