Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Don't give up on PeopleSoft just yet

October 18, 2004 | Comments: (0)

Don't give up on PeopleSoft just yet

TAGS: None

The abrupt departure last week of executive vice president of products and technology Ram Gupta from PeopleSoft doesn’t mean that the company is throwing in the towel and is ready to cave in to Oracle.

Gupta was a close associate of former CEO Craig Conway, and so not considered part of the new management team, said Lee Geishecker, Gartner's research vice president for enterprise applications and lead PeopleSoft analyst.

And even though PeopleSoft board members said during the Oracle-PeopleSoft trial in Wilimington, Del. last week that they would discuss the right offer, there are still many hurdles to overcome before a takeover, Geishecker said.

"You don't see people leaving in droves out of Pleasanton (PeopleSoft's corporate headquarters)," Geishecker said.

The board of directors may not be as eager to sell the company as some of their remarks during the trial might indicate. They must entertain offfers that might be in the best interests of the shareholders, said Joshua Greenbaum, of Enterprise Applications Consulting.

In the long run, however, PeopleSoft customers need to decide whether they want to stay with the company's applications suite.

If a takeover is successful, Oracle said it will support PeopleSoft's Enterprise, EnterpriseOne and J.D. Edwards-based products. However, at some point, emphasis will go to Oracle's eBusiness suite, Greenbaum said.

With a takeover, customers who are comfortable with simply maintaining their present PeopleSoft applications may able to get along for five or six years with a shift to Oracle.

"But if you are an aggressive company who wants to get Service Oriented Architecture and next generation products, you may be disappointed," Geishecker said.

-- By Jack McCarthy

Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 18, 2004 06:27 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE: