PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft is a software company that provides enterprise resource planning, Human Resource Management Systems and customer relationship management software solutions to corporations. The company was founded in 1987 by Dave Duffield and Ken Morris. Its roots lie from the idea Dave had about a "Client-Server" (then a new concept) version of Integral's popular mainframe HRMS package. Once Integral declined development and released Dave to pursue this endeavor on his own, PeopleSoft was born. Its stock trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol PSFT.

The software is modularized into specific components, such as payroll, human resources, inventory, various accounting packages, student enrollment, etc. It is well known for its ability to be easily "customized," or tailor-made, to fit the specific business needs of each client, while still being generic enough to meet corporate and governmental tracking requirements. Its detractors decry the frequent bugs found in the system, which require patches and fixes. PeopleSoft - like most large software companies - has spawned an industry-within-an-industry of PeopleSoft consulting, the implementation and maintenance of the product.

In 2003, PeopleSoft performed a friendly merger with smaller rival JDEdwards software. The rival with a similar product line provided strange synergies for the combined company. JDEdwards products catered to small to mid-sized companies runs on a variety of hardware and software including IBM AS/400 hardware, HP UNIX, INTEL/WINDOWS box or any one of the industry standard database like oracle, MS SQL, IBM DB2. In addition, PeopleSoft was now committed to supporting an old-style "green screen" application -- the same application which drove Dave Duffield to branch out and create PeopleSoft in the first place (only true if the JDEdward customer is running them on an AS400 world software.)

The whole software suite of PeopleSoft is currently moving from the traditional client / server based design to web centric design. The end result is all its business function can be access and run on a web client. Security and system setup function still need to perform on a thick client machine.

Beginning in 2003, PeopleSoft battled with Oracle over control of the PeopleSoft company. In June 2003, Oracle made a $7 billion bid ($19.50/share) to take over PeopleSoft, in what many describe as a hostile corporate take-over attempt. In February 2004, Oracle increased their bid to approximately $9.4 billion ($26/share), a 33% increase; this offer was also rejected forthwith by PeopleSoft's board of directors. Later that month, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit to block Oracle, on the grounds that the acquisition attempt would break anti-trust laws; however, in September 2004, this suit was rejected by a U.S. Federal judge, who found that the Justice Department had not proven its anti-trust case.

PeopleSoft in use

In 1997, Cleveland State University licensed PeopleSoft's software for tracking student records. After seven years of difficulties, they sued PeopleSoft for $510 million over claims of breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and four other counts. The university is claiming that software developed by PeopleSoft was missing specified features, and as a result has caused disruption to the admissions process.

In December of 1999, seven of the eight "Big 10" Midwestern universities which licensed PeopleSoft's software wrote a joint, open letter to the PeopleSoft CEO complaining about the quality and performance issues.

In the winter of 2003, UMass Amherst rolled out PeopleSoft's student records system. UMass released a self-service component called SPIRE, which is now the only way students can register for classes. While the initial reaction to SPIRE was favorable, over the next year people began criticizing it for its confusing user interface (UI), among other issues. An attempt to resolve some of the UI complaints over the summer of 2004 caused more serious problems, leading to the unavailability of SPIRE for most of the first week of the Fall 2004 semester, although other components of the PeopleSoft system were still fully functional.